Dear Her Majesty's Treasury,

Please provide all emails and letters referring to the Loan Charge that were to/from Beth Russell, Director General Tax and Welfare

Relevant dates: Between August 2019 to current date (8/2/2021)

Yours faithfully,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response but I am frustrated by your refusal to supply information that should be readily available and that you confirm is available.

A similar request to HMRC for emails with these terms was satisfied and resulted in at least 2 significant discoveries providing evidence that directors of HMRC misled various members of the HoL and TSC.

I request that you reconsider your decision not to supply this information.

In order to limit the dates then the scope could be reduced from 1/1/2020 to 31/12/2020

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear [email address] on behalf of FOI Requests,

Thank you for the response to my request and additional guidance.

I narrowed the scope of the request by reducing the time period from 18 months to 12 months, but this has still been declined on the grounds that there are too many emails.

I will reduce the period to 3 months 1/1/2020 to 31/3/2020.
If you are unable to satisfy this request please state how many emails meet the selection criteria

I'd also like to point out that your response is factually incorrect. To date, the government has taken no action whatsoever against any promoter of tax avoidance scheme that has been part of the Loan Charge policy. Emails between senior staff at HMRC revealed in another FOI has shown that the lack of action against promoters is something that they are still just talking about.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,
Thank you for your response where you have declined to provide the requested information on the grounds that it is too burdensome

You said:
We have interpreted your request as being a request for all correspondence to or from
Beth Russell containing the search term “Loan Charge” from 1 January 2020 to 31 March
2020. The search of our records indicated we held 471 emails potentially in scope of your
request.

This means that Beth Russel sent or received on average more than 7 emails a day on the subject. This seems an extraordinary number on one subject.

It might be useful to define what is meant by the word "potentially". An email contains the words specified (Loan Charge) or it doesn't. This is a binary option and a simple search of emails would clearly reveal an exact number.

Please provide the exact number (not potential) of emails that contain the specified term (Loan Charge) in each of the specified months.

1/1/2020 to 31/1/2020
1/2/2020 to 28/2/2020
1/3/2020 to 31/3/2020

It may be that the potential number of emails on this analysis yields an actual number that could be responded to in this FOI request.

You said:
Please also note regulations made under section 12(4) of the FOI Act provide that, where
authorities are addressing a number of related requests from the same person within any
period of 60 consecutive working days, they may group them. When requests are
aggregated the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is taken to be the
estimated total cost of complying with all of them. As such if we are able to comply with
any future request this may impact our ability to respond to any requests received after it

I have only made a single request for this information to HMT and indeed only a single request ever to HMT.

You said:
You additionally raised concerns about the action HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has
taken against promoters of tax avoidance. The Government treats tackling the promoters
of tax avoidance as a high priority and has reduced the avoidance tax gap, to which they
contribute, from an estimated £3.2bn in 2010-11 to an estimated £1.7bn in 2018-19.
HMRC has introduced a penalty regime for anyone who designs, sells, or otherwise
enables the use of a tax avoidance arrangement. Vigorous activity by HMRC has led to a
significant proportion of promoters having left the avoidance market since 2014.

The number of people engaging in Loan Charge schemes has continued to increase despite the measures you speak of. HMRC published their guidance on penalties for enablers of tax avoidance schemes in 2018. (4 years later than 2014 and 14 years after the retroactively/retrospectively applied Loan Charge) No promoters have been taking to court for promoting these schemes. If this is a high priority then it has clearly failed. The numbers quoted are like many from HMRC, totally incredible with no basis in fact and in some cases obvious attempts to provide erroneous information to various supervisory committees.
The only vigorous activity from HMRC continues to be against the victims of these schemes whose background is now more typically less affluent, financially savvy and in more and more cases health workers. (The ones that went into work to keep you/us alive during the pandemic)

I'm surprised that a claim "has led to a significant proportion of promoters leaving the avoidance market since 2014" can be made. Such a statement can only be made if HMRC know the names/numbers of promoters in 2014 and 2021 If HMRC know the names/numbers of these promoters then where is the action against the remaining promoters. The most prominent one continues to flourish as you well know.

I look forward to your response and further look forward to HMT embracing the FOIA.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response and the correction on the number of emails.

It is extraordinary that Beth Russell sent/received or was copied into so many emails on this one subject. With the revised number it means that she was included in 10 emails each day on this one subject

However in order to further reduce the scope, please do not include any emails in which she was just copied. Only emails in which she was on the 'To' or 'From' sections

To clarify:
Please provide all emails and letters referring to the Loan Charge that were to/from (not copied) Beth Russell, Director General Tax and Welfare

Relevant dates: Between 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your latest response to my request which states that there are 561 emails potentially in scope
Emails to Beth Russell between 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020.
I believe that this number is a gross exaggeration as it would mean that Beth Russell is authoring or directly receiving on average 9 emails each working day on this subject alone.
In order to help my surprise at the volumes please confirm that the search you are performing is the equivalent of
Select distinct emails where
(email contains term "Loan Charge")
AND
(From field contains "Beth Russell" OR To field contains "Beth Russell")

Please note the placement of the brackets.
Please ensure that the count is of distinct emails and do not contain duplicates.

Nevertheless if you confirm that the query against the email database has been performed correctly, then please supply the number of emails directly authored by Beth Russell containing the phrase "loan charge"
1/1/2020 to 31/1/2020
1/2/2020 to 28/2/2020
1/3/3030 to 31/3/2020

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response.
PLEASE NOTE- THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR AN INTERNAL REVIEW

It is clear that you are intending to break both the spirit and intention of the law in not responding to this FOI request.
This initial FOI was raised on the 9th February 2021. The scope has been narrowed in an attempt to help you provide the information. But it appears that you are willing to totally ignore the law which I quote from section 10 of the FOIA below.
"a public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt."

I have also provided some technical guidance as to how you might formulate a query to assist your search of emails.

Simply, please provide the information requested immediately. It is now overdue

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Please let me be a little more clear.
HMT are now breaking the law in the tardiness of their response to this FOI which was actually started on the 9/2/2021. Section 10 of the FOIA specifies that a response should be provided within 20 working days.

HMT have a number of times failed to meet the requirements of the FOIA by doing everything other than to provide the information requested. HMT clearly are not taking section 10 of the FOIA seriously as they claim in the latest response.

There can be no excuses for not providing the requested information immediately.
At the very least provide a date when the information will be released the term "as soon as possible" is not acceptable"

The response throughout this interaction since 9/2/2021 is giving a distinct impression that HMT have something to hide.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

This response is now significantly overdue.
You have provided response after response since this was raised in February saying there were too many emails and that therefore the response was burdensome. When asked for details of how many emails you have provided responded with incredible (unbelievable) numbers. When asked to break this down you have come up with even more unbelievable numbers and finally, when challenged further you claim their may be anomalies in your response.

It is now more than six months since this request was raised (10/2/2021).

This is not the standard of response I would have expected from HMT.

Please provide a response forthwith.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

A further 4 weeks (20 working days) have elapsed since you last responded.
Please provide an update as to when you will provide the requested information

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

This is getting ridiculous.
Please provide an explanation of why a date for delivery of these emails cannot be provided.

YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

It is now two months since you stated a statutory reply was due and again you continue to make excuse after excuse in not providing the information.
This request was started in February, more than six months ago.

I have now raised a formal complaint about your conduct with the ICO.

I still expect HMT to provide the information requested and can only assume that there is something that HMT do not want revealed.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

I will your mockery of the law by raising this with my MP .

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

I will also be raising your mockery of the law with my MP.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Please provide an update of when this information will be supplied.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response which is as evasive as all the other responses. You have stated various numbers and then provided an answer of "none" for a question that you created.

It appears that you are deliberately misleading in every response. I'd like to remind you that under section 77 of the FOIA that it is a criminal offence to deliberately withhold information requested.

"any person to whom this subsection applies is guilty of an offence if he alters, defaces, blocks, erases, destroys or conceals any record held by the public authority, with the intention of preventing the disclosure by that authority of all, or any part, of the information to the communication of which the applicant would have been entitled"

I will repeat the original request now that you have discovered with the help of your IT department that it is possible to search the database of emails. This search takes seconds and is not burdensome or vexatious. I have not asked that you search any other repositories of information.

Please supply copies of all emails sent or received by Beth Russell containing the term "loan charge" or its abbreviation "LC" between the dates 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

It may help you to know that other FOI requests to HMRC have shown that Beth Russel has been in regular communication via emails to various senior managers in HMRC on the very subjects requested. This further casts doubt on the honesty of your responses.

Please provide the information requested by return.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response to my FOI which has gone on now for over 8 months
1) You first said it was exempt dues to section 14, too burdensome as you would have to review all the emails from many people
2) I descoped the request from 18 months to 12 months
3) You said exempt, section 14
4) I descoped the request to 3 months
5) You said, exempt again section 14 as there are 471 emails 'in scope' The term 'in scope' being used to inflate the numbers. You also state that someone making multiple requests would be exempt under section 12 when it is HMT who is refusing to supply the information.
6) I ask for the actual numbers in each of the three months and it now changes to 618 emails (potentially in scope) that term in scope again.
7) You said exempt, section 14.
8) I provide some technical guidance as to how you might run a query that doesn't get so many emails "in scope".
9) A very long delay while I remind you that you are breaking the law in delaying
10) You respond with , we have an IT problem
11) Another very long delay (6 weeks) where I remind you that you are breaking the law again
12) You refuse quoting section 12. But this time saying there are 515 emails. You also manage to tell me that Beth Russell didn't send any emails on the subjected requested
13) I point out that searching for the emails isn't burdensome and section 12 does not apply.
14) Your response is that its exempt due to section 14

Nevertheless, I will attempt to descope again in the hope that we can make a step forward.

1. Please supply the precise count (not an in scope number that you appear to make up) of all emails sent by Beth Russell containing the term "loan charge" or its abbreviation "LC" between the dates 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020.
2. Please also supply copies of all emails sent by Beth Russell containing the term "loan charge" or its abbreviation "LC" between the dates 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for the response to my FOI.
You have said that Beth Russell did not write any emails containing the requested terms "LOAN CHARGE" or "LC" between 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020

It does seem rather odd that having received 515 emails that Beth Russell did not respond to any of them.

It may be that a member of her office is responding on her behalf to some of these 515 emails. I wonder if you would be kind enough to search the mail boxes of her secretary, personal assistant or anyone else in her office team that have written emails with the terms "LOAN CHARGE" or "LC" for the period 1/1/2020 to 31/3/2020.

You state that Beth Russell didn't write any emails herself. On this basis please provide
1) A count of the emails written by Beth Russell's secretary, personal assistant or Beth Russell's office support team containing the terms "LOAN CHARGE" or "LC". Of course please include emails that contain both terms. Please break this count down into a table showing the number written each month and the role of the author (secretary, PA, office).
2) Copies of any emails written by Beth Russell's secretary, personal assistant or Beth Russell's office support team containing the terms "LOAN CHARGE" or "LC". Of course I do not need to know the names of any member of staff not classified as a senior civil servant.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response to my FOI request.
In it you confirmed that neither Beth Russell, nor her office, PA, or secretary wrote a single email that contained the terms either "Loan Charge" or its abbreviation "LC" during the three month period between 1/1/2020 and 31/3/2020 despite receiving 515 emails containing these phrases in the same period.

Question 1
I do wonder whether you are misinterpreting my request to exclude emails that she may have written/sent where she herself or her team did not write the specified words in a response, but that they responded to an email chain containing these words. Please confirm whether or not this is the case. I ask as it seems very unusual for any individual to receive more than 500 emails without responding to any one of them.

Question 2
If the response to question 1 is that there are some email chains of the 515 received by Beth Russell or her office/PA/secretary that she or they responded to without actually writing either the words "Loan Charge" or its abbreviation "LC" then please provide copies of the email chains to which they responded.

Question 3
If the response to question 1 is that Beth Russell or her office/PA/secretary did not respond to any of the 515 emails then please supply copies of the emails received by Beth Russell or her support office/PA/secretary containing the terms either "Loan Charge" or its abbreviation "LC" during the period between 1/1/2020 and 17/1/2020.

I have deliberately limited this request following your guidance to ensure that it does not either exceed the limitations of section 12 or have such a wide scope that you may want to invoke section 14.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

HMT have admitted breaking the law in not responding in time.
HMT have been dragging your feet for nearly 12 months on the original request siting various exemptions.
Please provide a date when I can expect a copy of the information requested.

HMT are clearly obstructing the very purpose of the FOIA
A complaint will be raised with the ICO

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

I did not request an internal review for this FOI. Please correct.
I am still awaiting the data that you have not given a date to provide.

To be clear
I have requested an internal review for the associated one FOI2021/21472, but not this one FOI2021 28023

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

You wrote to me on the 12 Jan 2022 and said there would be a delay.
I did not ask for an internal review
I think that you are responding to the wrong request

Please supply the information requested

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Please confirm receipt of this email

I did not request an internal review for FOI2021 28023
I am still awaiting your response

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for confirming that this FOI (FOI2021/02823) is not being internally reviewed and that FOI2021/04908 is being internally reviewed.

I would appreciate a date by which you can respond as this FOI has now been underway for a very very long time, and is clearly breaking both the letter and spirit of the FOIA.

It is now less than three weeks to being a year since this FOI was raised.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your response to my FOI request.

I would like to understand how emails that are now 3 years old are being withheld using section 35(1)(a) of the FOI Act as it relates to the formulation or development of government policy. These emails are now simply an historical record of such.

As you have to consider public interest then I would ask that you provide the qualified opinion that supports such your use of section 35(1)(a).

Please also supply all meta data associated with FOI2021 28023.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your considerations
I look forward to the response containing metadata for FOI2021 28023 under reference FOI2022/03580.

It is now more than 12 months since I started asking for communications to/from Beth Russell regarding the Loan Charge. It is unfortunate that I have to say that HM Treasury have proven themselves to be most evasive in avoiding providing any information that is requested and clearly pride themselves in providing as little as possible on this very sensitive subject.

It should be noted that people are committing suicide (at least 8 recognised by HMRC so far) because of this flawed policy. It has many similarities to the Post Office scandal in its impact, albeit there were several hundred impacted by the dishonesty of the PO and its management but there are 50,000 affected by the Loan Charge. The lack of transparency on this subject mirrors almost exactly that which resulted in the Post Office scandal, I would have hoped that HMT would have learned something from such a debacle.

Public Interest in this subject is significant.
This can be gauged by the fact that HMRC monitor social media channels for Loan Charge communications. Revealed as part of another FOI request to HMRC

I will ask again for you to reconsider your use of section 35(1)(a). The purpose of the FOIA is for the public to be able to examine and understand the workings and decision making processes of the government and other authorities. A safe place for civil servants to discuss policy is not significant when compared to the deaths of a number of people. Even more so when these policies were drafted four to five years ago and implemented three years ago and the information requested is now more than two years old.

It is unreasonable to make claims that the policy changes are still active when the Loan Charge is now enacted in primary legislation.

A complaint will be initiated with the ICO.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith

Dear FOI Requests,

Please attach the information you provided to the ICO
Case Reference: IC-161762-Z1X9

This will help keep the audit trail of this request for anyone following it.
Of course you continue to withhold some information under section 35 which I believe should be released and anticipate that I will have to appeal to the ICO if it is not released.

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Smith