Scientology

William Thackeray made this Freedom of Information request to Home Office

The request was partially successful.

From: William Thackeray

3 July 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide a copy of your papers held on Scientology, including
but not limited to:

1) Judicial review

2) Immigration and Nationality including passport issues

3) Charitable status

(This relates to my previous FOI request which you can find at
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/93...
. I have been advised by the ICO that I am not able to request they
review your redactions as I did not make the original FOI request
itself, but merely requested a copy of your response to a previous
FOI request by another party. I am therefore now requesting the
information myself, in order to enable me to query your response
with the ICO).

Yours faithfully,

William Thackeray

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From: Bragaglia John
Home Office

17 July 2009

Attachment Thackeray Response.pdf
116K Download View as HTML

Dear Mr Thackeray,

Please find attached response to the above Freedom of Information request.

Yours sincerely,

John Bragaglia

Information Access Consultant

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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From: William Thackeray

17 July 2009

Thank you John, I appreciate that.

I request that the Home Office undertake an internal review in
respect of the redactions to these documents.

Just for clarity: I understand it'll be unlikely that you'll be
able to remove all of them, but I'm hoping you'll be able to
reconsider some of them.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

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From: Bragaglia John
Home Office

20 July 2009

Dear Mr Thackeray, thank you for your email.

I have forwarded your request for an internal review to the appropriate
mailbox. Your review will be allocated to a caseworker shortly.

Yours sincerely,

John Bragaglia
Information Access Consultant

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From: William Thackeray

24 August 2009

Hi John,

Still awaiting your response on this.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

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From: Bragaglia John
Home Office

1 September 2009

Dear Mr Thackeray,

I have forwarded your email to the caseworker handling your internal
review. I will ask him to confirm receipt direct with you.

Many thanks,

John Bragaglia
Information Access Consultant

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From: Lister Ian
Home Office

14 September 2009

Attachment Home Office FoIA Internal Review CR12325.pdf
100K Download View as HTML

Mr Thackeray,

Please see the attached letter in regards to your request for an Internal
Review.

Sincere regards,

Ian Lister
Information Access Consultant
Information Access Team

Email: [1][email address]
Post: Ground Floor, Seacole Building, Home Office, Marsham Street,
London, SW1P 4DF

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]

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William Thackeray left an annotation (28 September 2009)

From the ICO:

28th September 2009

Case Reference Number FS50267373

Dear Mr Thackeray

Information request to the Home Office

Thank you for your correspondence dated 27/08/09 in which you complain about the time taken for the Home Office to carry out an internal review that you requested on 17/07/09. I�m sorry it has taken until now to respond to you.

Please find reproduced below a document describing how we deal with Freedom of Information complaints.

The right to complain to the Information Commissioner is given under section 50 of the Act. However, a complaint may be deemed ineligible under section 50, if for example:

* There is an undue delay before bringing a complaint to our attention, or;
* You have not exhausted any complaints procedure which is provided by the public authority.

Therefore, before accepting complaints, the Commissioner generally expects complainants to allow public authorities the opportunity to respond to their appeal for a review of the handling of or decision regarding their FOI request.

Although there is no statutory time set out in the Act within which public authorities must complete a review, the Commissioner has issued guidance on this matter (Good Practice Guidance 5). The Commissioner considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the date of the request for review, and in no case should the total time taken exceed 40 working days.

I have written to the Home Office to provide them with confirmation of the reference under which your request for internal review is being handled and recommend that they issue you with an internal review decision within the time frame set out in their letter dated 14/09/09. I have further confirmed that the latest date on which the outcome of the review should be notified to you is no more 20 working days from the date of receipt of our letter. I enclose a copy for your information.

From my letter to the Home Office you will see that significant or repeated unreasonable delays in dealing with internal reviews by public authorities are monitored and where appropriate further action may be taken.

This case has now been closed, however if you do not receive a response within 20 working days please contact us quoting the reference number on this letter.

If you remain dissatisfied after having exhausted the Home Office�s internal review process and would like us to look into the matter, please contact us quoting the reference number on this letter and providing us with a copy of the internal review decision.

If we can be of any further assistance please contact our Helpline on 08456 306060, or 01625 545745 if you would prefer to call a national rate number, quoting your case reference number. You may also find some useful information on our website at www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely

Jim Dunn

FoI Case Officer

FoI Case Reception Unit

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From: William Thackeray

29 October 2009

Dear Ian,

I still await your department's response to my internal review
request dated July 17th.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

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From: Lister Ian
Home Office

29 October 2009

I am out of the office, returning on Monday 2nd November 2009. Your email
will not be read. I will endeavour to reply to your email at the earliest
opportunity on my return.

If your enquiry is urgent, please contact either Mark Jarvis on 020 7035
1027 ([email address]) or John Bragaglia on 020 7035
0570 ([email address]).

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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From: William Thackeray

30 October 2009

Dear John,

I still await your department's response to my internal review
request dated July 17th.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

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From: Bragaglia John
Home Office

30 October 2009

I am now out of the office until Monday 2 November 2009. In my absence
please contact Adrian Brook - 020 7035 1883
([email address]) or Mark Jarvis - 020 7035 1027
([email address]). Emails will not be read until I
return.

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
recorded for legal purposes.

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From: Bragaglia John
Home Office

2 November 2009

Dear Mr Thackeray,

I have forwarded your email to the caseworker who is undertaking your
internal review. He will provide you with an update either today or
tomorrow.

Yours sincerely,

John Bragaglia
Information Access Consultant

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From: William Thackeray

2 November 2009

Thank you, John.

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From: Lister Ian
Home Office

3 November 2009

Mr. Thackeray,

Please accept my apologies for not keeping you informed of our progress
with your Internal Review.

I have now completed my review into the handling and decision making of
your original request. My findings are now in the process of being
approved and I hope to be able to provide you with a substantive
response within the coming week or so; hopefully no later than Friday
13th November 2009. I hope that this delay has not inconvenienced you
unduly.

Sincere regards,

Ian Lister
Information Access Consultant
Information Access Team

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From: William Thackeray

4 November 2009

Many thanks, Ian.

Yours sincerely,

William Thackeray

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From: Lister Ian
Home Office

18 November 2009

Attachment FoIA Internal Review CR12325.pdf
151K Download View as HTML

Mr. Thackeray,

Please find attached our response to your request for an Internal Review.

May I once again offer my apologies for the time it has taken to provide
you with our findings.

Sincere regards,

Ian

Ian Lister
Information Access Consultant
Information Access Team

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Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored and/or
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William Thackeray left an annotation (30 November 2009)

Submitted to ICO for review:

"I requested that redactions be reviewed. Internal review taken place but no more information released. There is a public interest in disclosure, as shown by the evidence in submitted for Information Tribunal case EA/2009/0063. Full details of the FOI request can be found here:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sc...
Many thanks."

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William Thackeray left an annotation ( 4 February 2010)

From the ICO:

04/02/10

Our ref: FS50267373

Dear Mr Thackeray,

Freedom of Information Act 2000

Home Office

I write in connection with your complaint about the partial refusal of your information request made to the Home Office on 3 July 2009. This case has now been allocated to me for investigation. In this e mail I will set out my understanding of the background to your complaint and the steps that I will take towards resolution of this case.

Your request followed an earlier request for all information held by the Home Office relating to Scientology dating from 1 January 1993 and was worded as follows:

“Please provide a copy of your papers held on Scientology, including
but not limited to:

1) Judicial review

2) Immigration and Nationality including passport issues

3) Charitable status”

The response to this was dated 17 July 2009. This upheld the response to the previous request, which was that documents were disclosed, but with some of the content redacted under the exemptions provided by sections 27(1)(a) (prejudice to international relations), 32(1) (court records), 35(1)(a) (information relating to the formulation or development of government policy), 36(2)(b) (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) and 42(1) (legal professional privilege). This refusal was later upheld at internal review.

I have contacted the Home Office for further explanation of its reasoning for the exemptions cited. If it is necessary once the Home Office has confirmed its stance, I will draft a Decision Notice, which will set out the conclusions of this office in this case. I would caution at this stage that the Decision Notice process is lengthy and it is likely to be a matter of months, rather than weeks, from this point prior to any Decision Notice being issued. Thank you for your continued patience in the meantime.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Tomes

Senior Complaints Officer

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William Thackeray left an annotation ( 4 February 2010)

My reply to the ICO:

Many thanks, Ben.

The actual information released can be found at:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/93...

For a good example of the heavy redaction that's been applied to
these files, take a look at this page:
http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...
from which even the pronouns have been redacted!

Thank you again for your assistance with this matter.

Yours sincerely,
William.

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William Thackeray left an annotation (22 March 2011)

ICO Decision Notice

http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/...

(part-upheld)

under appeal to the Tribunal.

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William Thackeray left an annotation (15 June 2011)

ICO ref: FS50267373
Home Office ref: CR 12325
Information Tribunal ref: EA20110069 or EA/2011/0069

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From: William Thackeray

15 June 2011

Dear Home Office,

I refer to your letter dated 27 May 2011, your ref CR 12325.

As you know, the Information Commissioner found (in Decision Notice
FS50267373 ) the Home Office to be in breach of FOIA, and ordered
the release of further information.

Although information was enclosed with your letter of 27 May, it
was in hardcopy format. My request was specifically for the
information in electronic format. Under FOIA the requester is
entitled to specify the format in which they wish to receive the
information.

I therefore look forward to receiving the information in electronic
format.

Thank you for your assistance with this case.

Yours faithfully,

William Thackeray

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William Thackeray left an annotation (24 June 2011)

ICO's Decision Notice ordered the following documents to be disclosed:

Email FH to PB 07/10/03

Note from HMPS 02/10/03 [probably Her Majesty's Prison Service]

JR application 15/18/03 [Judicial Review]

Email AC to PB 09/10/03

Email FCO to PB 14/10/03 [FCO = Foreign (and Commonwealth) Office]

Note to Lady Blatch 08/11/95

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Ganesh Sittampalam left an annotation (25 June 2011)

William received electronic versions of the documents and sent them to us. I've uploaded them to:

http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...
http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...
http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...
http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...
http://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/...

Ganesh - WhatDoTheyKnow.com volunteer

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Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Home Office only: