Public sector flex Intelligent Customer Function minutes

Dear Sir or Madam,

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please can you provide me
with copies of all minutes of the Intelligent Customer Function and
other similar Management Meetings held by the 'public sector flex'
team since 1 January 2007.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

Dear Sir

Your Ref: FOI263398

Thank you for your response, and I am pleased to confirm that in
this instance I am happy to wait until 13 May for a response.

I appreciate that you may feel the need to redact a small amount of
commercially sensitive or confidential information from the
minutes.

Whilst you determine on whether it is appropriate to apply the
stated exemptions I should like to draw your attention to the
guidance issued by the Information Commissioner relating to minutes
of meetings.

This can be found at
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...
and states, inter alia,

"As a general rule you should publish ... minutes of senior-level
policy and strategy meetings, eg board meetings and any background
documents which are referred to in the agenda or minutes or were
circulated in preparation for the meeting."

I believe this useful and clear guidance would seem to indicate the
view the Information Commissioner is likely to take should I need
to appeal to the independent Information Tribunal under section 57
of the Act.

Furthermore, as you are intending to take an additional period of
time to respond, perhaps you would also be so kind as to extend the
scope of my request (in line with the ICO guidance) to encompass
"any background documents which are referred to in the agenda or
minutes or were circulated in preparation for the Intelligent
Customer Function and
other similar Management Meetings of the public sector Flex team".

If this will delay consideration and response to the original
request, I am happy for this to be treated as a new FOI request,
although I suspect it would be easier for you to determine the
public interest in publishing these at the same time as for release
of the main minutes.

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Mr Roberts,

Your Ref: FOI263398

In your previous mail you advised that you were planning to provide
a response to me by today, 13 May, or that if it appeared that it
will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, you would keep me
informed.

I should be grateful for an update on this.

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Mr Roberts,

Your Ref: FOI263398

In your previous mail you advised that you were planning to provide
a response to me by 13 May. I did send you a reminder a week ago
but have heard nothing.

I should be grateful for an update on this.

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Mr Roberts,

Your Ref: FOI263398

I am most disappointed at your failure to respond to my request
made under the Freedom of Information Act on 17 March.

You did advise me on 8 April that the request would take longer to
process as you were considering a public interest exemption, and
that you were expecting to provide a response by 13 May as
permitted by the Freedom of Information Act (section 10(3));
however, it should be noted that the extension of the time for
response in cases where public interest is being considered is not
an absolute one, but rather is an extension "until such time as is
reasonable in the circumstances". You have now had 32 working days
since referring this for consideration of the public interest
exemption, which I believe to be more than reasonable.

Furthermore, I contacted you on 13 May to remind you that a
response was due, and then a week later on 20 May to follow this
up, and on neither occasion have you bothered even to show the
common decency of an acknowledgement and a revised timescale for
response. Another week has now passed and I am, understandably,
getting frustrated.

If I do not hear from you in the next few days, I shall be forced
to make a formal complaint about the poor handling of this request.

I trust that I shall be hearing from you very shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Sir or Madam,

Re: FOI263398

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Cabinet Office's
handling of my FOI request 'Public sector flex Intelligent Customer
Function minutes'.

I was advised by Mr Keith Roberts on 8 April that you were
extending the timescales for a response as you were considering a
qualified exemption, and that you were aiming to respond to me by
13 May.

I accepted this delay in responding, and on 13 May chased for a
response. This was ignored. I chased again on 20 May. This too was
ignored. I chased yet again on 27 May, and again this was ignored.

I should be grateful if you could conduct a review of the handling
of this request. Whilst there is no formal timescale for responding
to FOI requests where a qualified exemption is being considered,
the Ministry of Justice advises that extensions should generally
avoid exceeding 20 working days. You have already taken almost
double this, and it is two and a half months since I made the
initial request.

I am most disappointed that the Cabinet Office, at the very heart
of Government, should have such a lacklustre approach to handling
FOI requests. I am, however, hopeful that a fresh pair of eyes on
this request will lead to the release of the requested information
without too much additional delay.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pu...

Yours sincerely,

Janine Baker

Dear Sir or Madam,

Re: FOI263398

It has now been a month since I contacted you requesting an
internal review of the handling of my Freedom of Information Act
request, three and a half months since I first tried to get
information from you. I have not had any communication from you
since 8 April, not even an acknowledgement of the five messages I
have sent you since then.

Please can you confirm without delay that the Internal Review into
the handling of this request is being conducted, and advise on the
likely date for a response. Whilst there is no mandatory timescale
for an Internal Review, the Information Commissioner has stated
(Good Practice Guidance #5) that a reasonable timescale for
conducting an Internal Review is 20 working days, and that if the
process is likely to take longer than this, the public authority
should notify the requester and explain why more time is needed.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly. If you fail to respond
to this message within a reasonable timescale, I shall have no
option but to complain to the Information Commissioner.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

FOR THE ATTENTION OF SUE GRAY, DIRECTOR

RE: FOI263398

Thank you for your response, which unfortunately denies me access
to the information requested.

I confirm that I would like the Internal Review to address not just
the poor handling of this request by the Cabinet Office, but also
the decision to withhold the information requested.

I should like the review to consider the following points:

1. As I indicated in a previous email, the Information Commissioner
has indicated that "As a general rule you should publish ...
minutes of senior-level policy and strategy meetings, eg board
meetings and any background documents which are referred to in the
agenda or minutes or were circulated in preparation for the
meeting." This would indicate to me that you should be starting
from a basis of expecting to publish the vast majority of the
information, and perhaps have to redact a small amount due to
various exemptions.

2. It appears inconceivable that out of 14 meetings every single
item discussed was covered by one or more of the exemptions. Is it
really appropriate to use section 40(2), 41(1) and 43(2) in respect
of every item on every page of the minutes of these 14 meetings?

3. I am surprised about the application of section 40(2) to exempt
this information from release. Whilst it is possible that there may
have been a very limited amount of personal information included in
the minutes, I would be most surprised if this amounted to anything
significant. Please can the review consider carefully to what
material section 40(2) is being applied, and whether this is
appropriate. I would not expect, for instance, that simply naming
individuals within the Cabinet Office or the service provider would
give rise to such an exemption, even if those individuals were
underperforming. Furthermore, if individuals were underperforming,
would it not be sufficient just to blank out his or her name,
rather than stating that the whole document cannot be released
because it mentions someone. I am sure this is an aspect the
Information Commissioner will wish to review should I need to take
this matter further.

4. I would likewise be surprised if there was a considerable
element of the minutes covered by section 41(1). I should like the
review to consider carefully to what material section 41(1) is
being applied, and in each case to review whether the information
was really given in confidence if it has been officially recorded
in the minutes. Furthermore, my understanding is that the Flex
Framework Board is intended to discuss a wide range of issues
concerning the application and progress of this programme. Given
that there would not be any actionable breach of confidence for the
Cabinet Office releasing Cabinet Office information, and it is
unlikely that there would be an actionable breach of confidence
relating to the Cabinet Office releasing information from another
Government department, I can only assume that any such confidential
information would be that provided directly by the service
provider. If this is the case, again the amount of such material
that would potentially be subject to redaction under this exemption
is likely to be very small. Also, I should like the review to
ascertain whether there was an explicit indication given at any
time that such information was being provided in confidence. Is
there anything in the Flex contract or in the standing instructions
of the Flex Framework Board to indicate that material is being
given in confidence and is not subject to the Freedom of
Information Act?

5. I am less surprised at the application of section 43(2), as I
would expect there to be some discussion of commercially sensitive
information in a meeting including the Government and its service
provider. However, as I indicated in my previous email, I would not
expect this to allow the Cabinet Office carte blanche to deny
access to all information in all of the minutes and supporting
materials. It may well be the case that if there were commercially
sensitive discussions, then some of the minutes may need to be
redacted to protect such commercial sensitivities, but because of
the public interest test it would be necessary for an appropriate
person (whom I believe to be a Cabinet Office Minister) to
specifically consider whether such an exemption is necessary, and I
would expect this to be done on a case by case basis rather than as
a blanket refusal to release any information whatsoever.

I am sure that the Cabinet Office is in favour of transparent
government, and of the importance of taxpayers being able to see
whether major programmes are being run efficiently and effectively.
The idea of the Freedom of Information Act is that it starts with a
presumption and desire to make information available, and that the
exemptions are only there to protect information which really
cannot be released into the public domain. I fear that the approach
taken by the Cabinet Office in responding to this FOI request, from
the long delay in responding and the indiscriminate use of
exemptions which would appear to have a very narrow applicability
to deny access to every piece of information held, is at odds with
this general principle of open government.

In summary, I should like the review to consider carefully whether
it is appropriate to withhold all the information in all of the
minutes (and background documents etc), especially in the light of
the Information Commissioners “general rule” concerning release of
information. I would much prefer to see the minutes published with
a few parts of them blacked out (obviously only where one or more
of the exemptions specifically applies), and I would like the
review to consider the validity of each such redaction. With just
14 sets of minutes, I would not expect it to be an onerous or time
consuming task to review each of the items on these few sets of
minutes to see whether one of the three exemptions applies and
blank out the small number of items where one does.

As previously indicated, I should also like the review to consider
the circumstances which led to the appalling and apparently
unprofessional handling of this request by the Cabinet Office,
whereby Mr Keith Roberts agreed to keep me informed if the response
would arrive later than 13 May, and then Mr Roberts and colleagues
apparently ignored three weekly reminders on 13 May, 20 May and 27
May, the formal request for an internal review on 2 June and that I
only received this response after indicating that I was on the
verge of complaining to the Information Commissioner.

I should be grateful if you could:

a) Acknowledge receipt of this email.
b) Indicate the expected timescale for the substantive review of
this to be completed (which I would expect to be within the next
four weeks).
c) Keep me informed if there is likely to be any delay to the
timescale.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

FOR THE ATTENTION OF SUE GRAY, DIRECTOR

RE: FOI263398

I should be grateful if you could provide an update on this
Internal Review.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

FOR THE ATTENTION OF SUE GRAY, DIRECTOR

RE: FOI263398

On 4 July I asked for an Internal Review of the decision to deny me
access to the minutes and background papers for meetings of the
Public Sector Flex Intelligent Customer Function. I also wanted you
to review why it took such a long time to respond to my request and
why the whole process was handled so appallingly by your
department, with deadlines missed and a complete lack of any
communications from your team.

After a week I received an acknowledgement of the request and an
assertion that this was receiving attention and that you aimed to
get back to me within 20 working days of date of receipt of my
email (ie by 31 July).

However, 31 July came and went with no sign of a response from you.
I left it a couple more weeks since it is the holiday season, and
sent you a chaser on 18 August. This appears to have been ignored.

Please can you therefore confirm to me:

1. Is the Internal Review progressing?

2. Who is conducting the Internal Review?

3. When is the review expected to be completed?

4. Are there any additional complaint channels I can use within the
Cabinet Office if you fail to respond to my Internal Review in a
timely fashion, or do I need to complain direct to the Information
Commissioner?

I look forward to hearing from you by return.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

** PLEASE TREAT THIS AS A COMPLAINT UNDER YOUR COMPLAINTS HANDLING
PROCEDURE **

I am writing to complain about the poor standard of service
provided by the Freedom of Information Team at the Cabinet Office.

The full audit trail of this issue can be found at
www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/public_se....

In summary, I made a request under the Freedom of Information Act
on 17 March. This was immediately acknowledged and on 8 April I
received an initial response that you were considering the public
interest test on an exemption, and that you requried an additional
20 working days to
consider this.

At the end of that period, I had heard nothing so sent a chaser (13
May), which you appear to have ignored. I sent another chaser (20
May) which you ignored. I sent a further chaser (27 May) which you
ignored.

Since you were unwilling to provide any response, I had to request
an Internal Review into the handling of the response (3 June). This
too elicited no response from you until I chased it again (2 July)
when I finally received a response to my initial request.

In this response, in addition to denying me access to the
information I sought, you acknowledged the internal review request
and said before you issued "a substantive response to the review",
you wanted to know whether I wanted the review to cover the
decision to withhold the information as well as the poor handling.
I confirmed immediately (4 July) that I did want the review to
cover the decision as well as the process.

After a week I received a response from you that you were
considering the Internal Review and that you aimed to respond
within 20 working days.
After this time, I chased up a response (18 August); this was
ignored. I chased it up again a week ago (26 August), but again
this has been ignored.

My complaint is as follows:

1. The FOI Team has failed to acknowledge/respond to six messages
from me (13 May, 20 May, 27 May, 3 June, 18 August, 26 August).

2. The time taken to respond to the initial FOI request (and to
deny me the information) was 75 working days. The Act (s10) says
that you must comply "promptly". Even considering a public interest
test, this is massively in excess of the 20 working days in the Act
and in no way could be described as responding promptly. I would
have expected that the FOI Team should have processes to ensure
that you meet your legal obligations under the Act, and this clear
failure indicates that you do not.

3. The time taken so far to fail to respond to the Internal Review
request is either 64 working days (from when I first asked on 3
June) or 40 working days (from when I extended the Internal Review
request to cover your refusal to provide me with the information).
The Information Commissioner's guidance is that a reasonable
timescale for an Internal Review is 20 working days. You have had
at least twice this. Again, I would expect that the FOI Team should
have a responsibility for monitoring Internal Reviews to ensure
they progress in a timely fashion. You appear to have failed to do
so.

Therefore, IN PARALLEL WITH MY REQUEST FOR AN INTERNAL REVIEW, I
should like you to invoke your complaints procedure in respect of
the actions (or inactions) of the FOI Team. Whilst the Internal
Review is (hopefully) looking wider at the whole handling of the
FOI request (and the reasons for denying me the information
requested), my complaint is specifically about the FOI Team's role,
failing to acknowledge/respond to messages and failure to
adequately control the process for responding to requests.

I understand from your published Complaints Procedure that you aim
to "treat complaints seriously and deal with them efficiently",
"resolve complaints promptly" and "learn from complaints and take
action to improve your service". You also have a commitment to
respond promptly and ALWAYS WITHIN 15 DAYS.

For avoidance of doubt, I confirm that this complaint is in
addition to and not in replacement of my Internal Review request. I
am still awaiting a response to this.

I look forward to hearing from you:

(a) on the outcome of the Internal Review as soon as possible;

(b) on my complaint as soon as possible and within 15 days, ie by
17 September.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to remind you that I am still waiting for a response
to my request for an Internal Review which was sent to you on 4
July (now almost four months ago). I would remind you that in most
cases Internal Reviews should be processed within 4-6 weeks, so you
have already had twice as much time as this.

I am also awaiting an acknowledgement/response to my formal
complaint of 2nd September sent to your department. I would remind
you that the Cabinet Office's published service standards say that
complaints will always be responded to within 15 days. You have
already had 61 days to respond to this.

Would it be possible for you to provide expected timescales (or
responses) to the Internal Review and the Formal Complaint?

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

Dear Ms Pickering

Firstly I should like to thank you, after all this time, for
sending me a response. It is a shame that it has taken seven and a
half months to get here, but thank you for what you have sent
through.

Whilst I am pleased to see some of the information has been
released, I am somewhat concerned about the excessive redaction in
the documents, particularly the minutes from meetings 17 to 19. You
indicate in your covering note that some information has been
excluded under section 40 of FOIA (following an extensive
examination). This leads to two follow up comments:

1. Under section 40 of FOIA you have redacted the names of every
attendee at every meeting, and any references to the individuals in
the minutes. According to the guidance from the Information
Commissioner's Office
(http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...),
s40 does not give a blanket exemption always to hide everyone's
names. Instead you should consider (a) whether the information is
about a person's public role, (b) would they expect their role to
be subject to public scrutiny and (c) is there a likelihood of
unwarranted damage or distress to the individual. If you have
conducted extensive examinations, no doubt you have recognised that
this request refers to their public roles and most of the attendees
(other than very junior people) should expect their roles to be
subject to scrutiny. On the question of damage or distress, the ICO
document specifically says that this does NOT cover embarassment or
legitimate criticism. In other words, there should be little reason
for redacting the identities of (most of) the attendees.

2. I fail to see how section 40 could be used to justify the
redaction of huge sections of the minutes 17-19, which I assume
talk about ongoing difficulties with the programme. If there are no
identifiable people, how can you justify using s40 to remove, say,
virtually all of the customer feedback section. Whilst I appreciate
that this information may be embarassing to the Cabinet Office
and/or Fujitsu, this is a major flagship Government programme on
which taxpayers are spending significant amounts of money, and if
there are serious problems being expressed in customer feedback, I
believe the public has a right to know.

I have already raised this case with the Information Commissioner
in view of the appalling handling to date by the Cabinet Office,
and shall be making these points to them. However, you may like to
reconsider the redactions to the documents in advance of any formal
approach from the ICO.

Finally, whilst you have now released some of the information to
me, I do still have outstanding an Internal Review into the
handling of this FOI request and a formal complaint about the
inaction and unprofessional attitude of the FOI Team. I should be
grateful for your confirmation that these are being addressed with
expected response dates in both cases.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

Dear Ms Pickering

Thank you for your quick and informative response. It appears that
you have finally managed to circumvent the logjam that is the
Freedom of Information Team and I do appreciate the efforts you
have gone to to try to provide me with the information I seek.

I note your comments about redacting information under sections 41
and 43 as well as section 40, but still feel that the redactions
have been excessive. I am concerned in particular that there would
be little for the Cabinet Office to gain from redacting positive
feedback about the service from the participating departments, and
that the significant redactions are to cover up concerns raised by
these departments about a potentially failing programme
(particularly as there seems to be significant contractual
renegotiation going on). If this is the case, I believe there is a
clear public interest in telling the taxpaying public what is going
on rather than covering it up.

I am somewhat confused at your comment that each organisation in
the Intelligent Customer Function has removed material from the
minutes after conducting public interest tests. My reading of the
Freedom of Information Act is that it is Cabinet Office, who are
holding the information, who should determine the applicability of
exemptions.

Furthermore, I would question the use of section 41 to redact
information provided in confidence; section 41 specifically refers
to actionable breaches of confidence, ie would, say, DIUS be able
to take legal action against Cabinet Office for releasing the
information. Whilst I appreciate that feedback on the service may
well be sensitive, release of this does not create actionable
breaches of confidence. Also, you cannot use s41 where both parties
are government departments.

I do not anticipate that you will be open to releasing unredacted
or less redacted versions of minutes 17 to 19, and whilst the
Internal Review process drags on I presume this is in the hands of
the Freedom of Information Team, and hence have little confidence
of a speedy resolution. I have sent some further thoughts and
comments to the Information Commissioners Office and hope that they
will be able to facilitate the release of more of these minutes in
due course.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

FOR THE ATTENTION OF SUE GRAY, DIRECTOR

I am disappointed that yet again I have to chase up the Cabinet
Office for the current status on my request for an Internal Review
and formal complaint against the CO Freedom of Information Team.

Full details of this are available at
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pu...

I am pleased to note that Felicity Pickering has released some of
the information to me (almost 8 months after I initially requested
it), but that this information was significantly and, in my
opinion, excessively redacted.

Ms Pickering advised me in her message of 3rd November, now two
weeks ago, that "The FOI team assures me that the review process
continues, and I hope it will not be long in delivering results."

Since the Cabinet Office has been explicitly reminded by the
Information Commissioner (FS50203092 - 13/10/09) of the need to
respond to Internal Review requests in a timely fashion, and
usually within 20 working days, please can you advise:

1. When you are intending to provide me with the outcome of the
Internal Review (sent to you on 4th July, now four and a half
months ago).

2. When you are intending to respond to the formal complaint I made
about the performance of your FOI team, submitted to you on 2nd
September (and reiterated on a number of occasions thereafter).

As you may be aware, this matter has been raised with the
Information Commissioner as it appears to highlight extremely poor
practice within the Cabinet Office in the handling of FOI requests.
Your continued lack of attention to this matter will no doubt be
noted by the Commissioner in due course.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker

FAO Sue Gray

On 4 July 2009 - some NINE MONTHS ago - I asked for an Internal
Review into the handling of my Freedom of Information Act request
for the minutes of the Public sector flex Intelligent Customer
Function.

You acknowledged receipt of this on 13 July and informed me that
you would aim to get back to me within 20 working days.

After you ignored this deadline, I chased you on 18 August and 26
August. Then I made it a complaint on 2 September (to be handled
under your complaint handling procedure). I sent an email complaint
to you personally on 18 September (in case the Freedom of
Information Team was not passing them on to you).

I chased this up again on 2 November, in response to which I
finally received some heavily redacted minutes (but no response to
the request for the Internal Review).

I was advised by Felicity Pickering on 3 November that the FOI Team
had assured her that "the review process continues".

Please can you tell me whether you are ever going to take your
obligations under the Freedom of Information Act seriously and
actually respond to my request for an Internal Review.

If you do decide to progress the Internal Review and the formal
complaint, in addition to addressing the issues initially raised
(some of which have been dealt with in the limited release of
information), please can you also respond to my comments made to Ms
Pickering on 3 November and 4 November about the inappropriate
redaction of parts of this document, including:

- removing the names of all individuals from the minutes under s40,
when the matters discussed were all to do with their professional
roles (rather than personal), they would (or should) expect their
roles to be under scrutiny and the exemption is specifically not
there to hide embarrassment or legitimate criticism.

- whether the Cabinet Office determined what should be redacted
(which is what should happen) or the attendees decided what to take
out to prevent embarrassing material being revealed (which is what
Ms Pickering implies).

- using s41 to redact material on grounds of actionable breaches of
confidence, when the material has been shared between different
Government departments.

I should be most grateful if you could look into this as a matter
of urgency, as from the redacted minutes it appears that there have
been some significant problems with this programme and I believe
that the public has a right to know what is going on.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Baker