2018 Communications between UKGI and the NAO regarding the PO Chairman’s Review

Waiting for an internal review by UK Government Investments Limited of their handling of this request.

Dear UKGI Information Rights Team,

Please can you disclose all email correspondence between UKGI and the National Audit Office starting from November 2018 which referred to the request by the NAO for a copy of any advice to Baroness Neville-Rolfe following the review set up by Tim Parker. This review was known at the time as the Chairman’s Review (later referred to as the Swift Review).

(See Witness Statement of Richard Watson for the Post Office Horizon IT Public Inquiry, para 47-48)

https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org...

Please can you also disclose all internal UKGI emails and/or email correspondence between UKGI and the Post Office which relate to the NAO request for disclosure of the Chairman’s Review made in November 2018.

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Freedom of Information, UK Government Investments Limited

Thank you for your email which is being reviewed. A reply will be sent
shortly.

UKGI Freedom of Information Team

show quoted sections

Freedom of Information, UK Government Investments Limited

1 Attachment

Please find attached a response in respect of your FOI request below.

Kind regards

UKGI Freedom of Information Team

show quoted sections

Dear Information Rights Team,

Thank you for your response of 27 January regarding FOI 1220207.

It is disappointing that, in the context of the appalling injustices spawned by the Horizon scandal, UKGI deems the grounds of public interest do not outweigh Section 22(a) or Section 32(2)(a) exemptions under the FOIA. No commitment to openness or transparency is reflected in your decision.

I am not a core participant of the Inquiry and am not therefore party to documents which are released to core participants; moreover there is no guarantee that the documents I have requested will in time be published more widely by the Inquiry.

Further it is not the function of the Inquiry, as you suggest, to respond to my requests for information. A lawyer for the Inquiry has previously responded to my queries regarding the disclosure of information by advising I await the publication of Sir Wyn’s report. That is a markedly different time frame to the 20 working days which is prescribed by the FOIA.

It is also obvious that once the work of the Inquiry has ended, this channel of communication will cease to exist should I, or anyone else, have FOI requests relating to UKGI/PO Horizon matters in future.

You state in your response that you are no longer in possession of the relevant documents, which raises for me the serious question as to whether these documents have been deliberately disposed of so as to avoid disclosure via FOI.

To this end, please can you disclose the UKGI Retention Schedule and the Records of Disposal relating to the requested emails along with the date of their disposal and the identity of the individual who authorised their disposal.

I am happy for you to treat this as a continuation of FOI 1220207 or for this query to be logged as a new FOI request.

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Freedom of Information, UK Government Investments Limited

Thank you for your email which is being reviewed. A reply will be sent
shortly.

UKGI Freedom of Information Team

show quoted sections

Dear UKGI Information Rights Team,

Further to your response of 29 January to FOI 1220207, it remains unclear why UKGI has decided to invoke a Section 32(2)(a) exemption on this request.

No other authority has previously refused FOI disclosure to my requests for information pertaining to issues covered by the Post Office Inquiry on the basis of a 32(2)(a) exemption including: the Department for Business and Trade; the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; the Post Office; the Criminal Cases Review Commission; the Ministry of Justice; HM Treasury; the Department for Work and Pensions and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Moreover, UKGI has previously complied with my FOI requests for information relating to governance and legal matters which are within scope of the Post Office Inquiry (see FOI 1016012 of August 2023 and FOI 8225071 of Feb 22).

Evidently the application of the exemption - though ‘absolute’ - is discretionary and there is no consistency in your decision set against the relative transparency of your own asset, the Post Office, or of its Government Shareholder, as reflected in their FOI responses. Indeed both disclosed to me the Swift Review (to which FOI 1220207 relates) under the FOIA in 2022; clearly disclosure of the review itself was not deemed likely to pre-empt or prejudice the work of the Public Inquiry.

I also question the grounds on which this exemption has been applied by UKGI. To qualify for a Section 32(2)(a) exemption, the documents in question must be held only by virtue of having been created or obtained for the purposes of an Inquiry. I do not believe this is applicable to the documents requested under FOI 1220207 which pre-date the Public Inquiry. The documents evidence the potential discovery by the NAO of a key 2016 review, an early revelation of which might have averted the entire Post Office’s High Court litigation had UKGI identified its contents sooner. Such was its significance, communications around the Swift Review would, I suggest, have been held by UKGI (and therefore be available for disclosure under FOI) regardless of whether or not a Public Inquiry was subsequently launched.

You are also invoking a Section 22(a) exemption on the grounds that the Public Inquiry may publish the relevant documents if considered appropriate. It is overwhelming likely that, were the relevant documents to be published, they would already have been disclosed during the evidential phases of the Inquiry. No indication has been given by Sir Wyn Williams or his team that more records are to be publicly released prior to, or parallel with, the publication of the Sir Wyn’s findings.

I am therefore requesting an Internal Review into your handling of FOI 1220207 and will have no hesitation in referring this to the Information Commissioner’s Office should the outcome prove to be unsatisfactory.

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Freedom of Information, UK Government Investments Limited

Thank you for your email which is being reviewed. A reply will be sent
shortly.

UKGI Freedom of Information Team

show quoted sections