Communcation between Royal Mail and GCHQ

Christian Cowell made this Freedom of Information request to Royal Mail Group Limited
This authority is not subject to FOI law, so is not legally obliged to respond (details).
This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was partially successful.

Christian Cowell

To Whom it May Concern,

I wish to make a Freedom of Information request, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, in regards to Communication between Royal Mail and the 'Government Communications Headquarters' (a.k.a. 'GCHQ').

In particular, I am requesting any and all communications on record from the GCHQ, to Royal Mail, and from Royal Mail, to GCHQ, in full, and dated if not otherwise obvious within the document itself.

I also request any internal communications that will be created when fulfilling this request, including any communications between Royal Mail departments and/or third parties (such as FOI lawyers).

Thank you for your time,
Christian Cowell

FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Thank you for request for information received on 03 August 2013, which we
are considering under the Freedom of Information Act.  Under the Act you
should expect a reply from us to be sent by 02 September 2013, which is
twenty working days from receipt of your request.

 

If for any reason we are unable to provide you with a full response within
that time, we will contact you explaining the reasons for this and giving
a revised date by which we will reply. 

 

If in the mean time you have any questions or would like to contact us
about your request, please contact us by emailing [1][Royal Mail Group request email]. 
Please be assured that we are giving this our attention and will get back
to you shortly.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Kate Fearn

Information Rights Team

Company Secretary’s Office

Royal Mail Group

 

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FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Please find attached a response to your recent Freedom of Information
Request.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Kate Fearn
Company Secretary's Office
Information Rights Officer
[1][Royal Mail Group request email]

 

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in
England and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ

 

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Dear Royal Mail Freedom of Information Act Team,

Your response to my request (MTEE-9AAASU) I feel was woefully inadequate. In that request I asked for all recorded information created in forfilling the overall request.

You denied this out of sheer pedanticism and you acted in bad faith, refusing the request out of what can only be described as willingful ignorance of the intention of the very sections you were quoting to refuse the request.

As you asked me to resend the SAME request twice just to get the information I originally requested, I shall be expecting the information by the 3rd September 2013. My request has not been amended, so it is still within the 20 working day timeframe of which it is currently the 19th day.

I await the information tomorrow,

Christian Cowell

FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Thank you for your email. As we explained in our response dated 02
September, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to recorded
information held at the time when a request is received. The Act does not
apply to information which has not yet been created when a request is
submitted. Your request was therefore refused for the reasons stated in
our original response. However, because you are unhappy with that response
we will now carry out an internal review of your request in line with the
Code of Practice issued under section 45 of the Act. We aim to complete
all internal reviews as soon as we reasonably can. This will usually be
within 20 working days and in any case no later than 40 days from receipt
of the appeal.  

 

In the meantime if you have any questions or would like to add any further
information for consideration then please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Kate Fearn

Company Secretary's Office

 

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in
England and Wales.

Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ

 

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Dear Ms Fearn,

You are ignoring my request.

I have asked for the recorded information in my original request, as a separate request, as you asked.

You refused to bother with my original request on a technicality, now I have resubmitted it as you wished, and you are now ignoring it and going straight to an internal review.

Please fulfill the request by the 3rd of September 2013, as my request has not been amended and you have merely asked me, beyond the scope of the law, to resubmit the exact same request just to get an answer.

I await the results of my request tomorrow,
Christian Cowell

FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Thank you for your email dated the 3^rd September 2013. Please be assured
that we are not ignoring your request and take our obligations under the
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act extremely seriously. In your email dated
2^nd September you wrote that you felt our response to your request for
information was ‘woefully inadequate’. The Code of Practice issued under
section 45 of the FOI Act states that any response from an applicant
expressing dissatisfaction with a response should be handled in accordance
with a public authority’s complaints procedure. We therefore consider it
necessary to carry out an internal review of our handling of your request
which we received on 3^rd August 2013.

 

In your original email, dated 3^rd August 2013, you requested ‘any and all
communications on record from the GCHQ, to Royal Mail, and from Royal
Mail, to GCHQ’. We refused that request under section 23(5) of the FOI Act
and will now review this decision unless you do not wish us to proceed
with an internal review.

 

In your email of the 3^rd August you also requested ‘any internal
communications that will be created when fulfilling this request,
including any communications between Royal Mail departments and/or third
parties’. We have explained that the FOI Act does not apply to information
which has not yet been created and another request would need to be made
at a later date for any such information.

 

Your emails dated the 2^nd and 3^rd of September did not include a clear
new request for information but asked us to respond to your request of the
3^rd August within 20 working days of that first request being made. If
you now wish to request internal communications created in the course of
responding to your request dated 3^rd August 2013, we still require you to
confirm this in writing to us as a fresh request. We will then gather the
information which is held and respond, under the terms of the FOI Act,
within 20 working days.

 

Guidance and information about the FOI Act is available from the
Information Commissioner’s Office: [1]www.ico.gov.uk. If you believe that
we have failed to comply with a request for information you have the right
to complain to the Information Commissioner.

 

We will write to you in due course regarding the outcome of our internal
review of your request dated 3^rd August 2013.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Kate Fearn

Information Rights Team

Company Secretary’s Office

Royal Mail Group

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Dear Ms Fearn,

Once again, I feel that you are taking an extremely pedantic approuch to what was a very clear request.

It was clear that I made a separate request for the data created in forfilling, or an attempt to forfill, my original request from the 3rd August 2013, as per the rules that you arbitrary imposed.

Please consider this a fresh request, as once again you have put artifical hurdles on this request in bad faith. Please consider my entire dialogue with you in the interal review though, unless you also have some new, previously unstated, arbitrary reason to refuse doing that as well?

Thanks for your time,
Christian Cowell

Dear Ms Fearn,

I trust that you have not confirmed receipt of my request, made on the 5th September, not out of sheer incompetence or flouting of my requests.

As you yourself felt you were in the position to demand I make a fresh request arbitrarily, I expect confirmation of it's receipt by the end of today, with confirmation that I shall recieve a reply to it in the next 16 business days.

Christian Cowell

FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

Dear Mr Cowell,

 

Thank you for your email. May I apologise that an acknowledgement of your
request has not been issued to you. I can confirm that your request is in
progress and you should expect a response to be issued by 03 October 2013
which is twenty working days from receipt of your request on 05 September
2013.

 

If for any reason we are unable to provide you with a full response within
20 working days, we will contact you explaining the reasons for this and
giving a revised date by which we will reply. 

 

I can also confirm that your request for an internal review of our
response of 02 September 2013 which was received on the same date is in
progress. Your comments in your email of 05 September 2013 concerning our
correspondence have also been noted and will be considered as part of the
review process.

 

If in the meantime you have any questions or would like to contact us
about your request, please contact us by telephone on 0114 241 4215 or
alternatively email us at the address below. Please be assured that we are
giving your request our attention and will get back to you shortly.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Kate Fearn

Information Rights Team

Company Secretary’s Office

Royal Mail Group

 

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FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

1 Attachment

 

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Please find attached a response to the Internal Review of your recent
request for information.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Colin Young

Head of Information Rights

Royal Mail Group

 

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in
England and Wales.

Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ

 

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FOI, Royal Mail Group Limited

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Cowell

 

Please find attached a response to your recent Freedom of Information
Request.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Kate Fearn
Information Rights Team

Royal Mail Group
[1][Royal Mail Group request email]

 

Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in
England and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ

 

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