Emails to First Minister

Welsh Government did not have the information requested.

Dear Welsh Government,

Following on from my earlier request ATISN 14778 I find it quite remarkable that to search for text you "would need to manually read each individual e-mail received".

Please advise which email software product or package handles the emails sent to the Correspondence.Mark.Drakeford@gov.wales email address on their arrival.

It is my intention to contact the manufacturer of this package to see if it has any capability to search the text of these emails before they are split in to the multiple mailboxes.

Yours faithfully,

Mr A Willmore

[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Well done Nr Willmore.

There must be many requesters who are puzzled by this lack of WG computerisation ...and even more puzzled that the First Minister’s correspondence is not subject to any computerised search facility.

How on earth does his secretary manage to find anything if he/she is confined to paper and cannot use emails?

A Willmore left an annotation ()

Thank you for your suggestion! I was deliberating how to progress and you provided the prompt I needed.

I'm going to let them deal with this one first, and then we can explore the "multiple mailboxes", how the 1000-odd emails a week are divided between those mailboxes and what rules are used to make those divisions.

I'm still convinced that the FM's email account is nothing but a black hole, but let's see what they come up with.

Welsh Government

Dear Mr A Willmore

 

The Welsh Government uses Outlook as an e-mail client. However, as
explained in the disclosure, e-mails are not kept in one location and
additional copies of duplicate e-mails are deleted. The records kept may
be stored in a large number of a different mailboxes and on different
systems, dependent upon how they have been processed. Not all of these
systems offer a way to search for individual words within documents or
have a way to filter a search within documents by required criteria.
Therefore, the only way to complete the search requested would be a manual
read of records, which is as outlined significantly over the appropriate
limit. While an automated search may be possible on certain systems, the
results would be partial and would still need to be manually checked to
confirm records are in scope of the request. This check would be extensive
and also over the appropriate limit.

 

Your sincerely,

 

Jamie

Jamie Jenkins

Rheolwr Gwybodaeth/Information Manager

Gwasanaethau Corfforaethol/Corporate Services

 

Grŵp yr Ysgrifennydd Parhaol/Permanent Secretary’s Group

Swyddfa’r Prif Weinidog/Office of the First Minister

 

Llywodraeth Cymru/Welsh Government

 

show quoted sections

[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Section 16

Then ask him to limit the request ....and ask him what it might be limited to.

He should now give you section 16 Help and Advice ...on how to do it.

Section 16 in practice
13. A public authority’s duty to provide advice and assistance is extensive and will apply to both prospective and actual applicants for information.
14. The purpose of section 16 is to ensure that a public authority communicates with an applicant to find out what information they want and how they can obtain it.
15. It is not a way for a public authority to establish a motive for the request. A public authority should be prepared to explain why it is asking for more information to avoid giving theimpression that it is enquiring into the reasons behind the request.

https://ico.org.uk/media/1624140/duty-to...

Courts don’t seem to like organisations wasting requester’s time. Or anyone else’s. As they have to go through the Information Commissioner’s Office too.

==

First Q when I went to court was was ‘Where is the S16 assistance?’

There was none, I won.

A Willmore left an annotation ()

Thanks for your suggestion JT , I will bear it in mind if / when I get no response to my current request.