Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme (ELAAS)

Waiting for an internal review by Ministry of Justice of their handling of this request.

Dear Ministry of Justice,

Litigants in person are sometimes referred by the Employment Appeal Tribunal to Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme (ELAAS). Please provide the following information about ELAAS:

1. Who is in charge of ELAAS?

2. Where can I find the terms and conditions of ELAAS?

3. What is the reason why the ELAAS advisor does not communicate with the litigant expecting their support until the morning the case is listed?

4. What is the reason why, when ELAAS decides not to represent litigant expecting their help, the litigant is only advised about it in the morning of the hearing and not well in advance, in order to allow the litigant to make alternative representation arrangements?

Yours faithfully,

Eduard Popescu

Disclosure Team, Ministry of Justice

Dear Eduard Popescu

Thank you for your e-mail, I am writing to advise you that your enquiry does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) regime and has been rejected by the Disclosure Team.

It may be helpful if I explain that the FOIA gives individuals and organisations the right of access to all types of recorded information held, at the time the request is received, by public authorities such as the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Section 84 of the FOIA states that in order for a request for information to be handled as a FOI request, it must be for recorded information.

For example, a FOI request would be for a copy of a policy, rather than an explanation as to why we have that policy in place. On occasion, the MoJ receives requests that do not ask for recorded information, but ask more general questions about, for example, a policy, opinion or a decision.

You may wish to re-submit your enquiry to the Ministry of Justice, which will be treated as Official Correspondence. Our contact details are as follows:

102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ

Contact Form:

https://contact-moj.dsd.io/
Telephone Number:
020 3334 3555

If you do have any questions relating specifically to the FOIA or Data Protection Act (DPA), please contact the Disclosure Team at the following e-mail address: [MoJ request email]

Kind regards,

The Disclosure Team

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Dear Ministry of Justice,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of the Ministry of Justice's handling of my FOI request 'Employment Law Appeal Advice Scheme (ELAAS)'.

Your stock, copy-paste reply, advised me that "your enquiry does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) regime and has been rejected by the Disclosure Team."

This is simply false. I have request information about a legal advice scheme that you operate. There is no reason for you not to disclose this information in response to my Freedom of Information Request.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...

Yours faithfully,

Eduard Popescu

Disclosure Team, Ministry of Justice

Dear Mr Popescu,

Thank you for your email.

As we have previously advised you, we cannot conduct Internal Reviews when the original request was not treated under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

We would be happy to respond to any request for recorded information under the FOIA.

Kind regards,

Disclosure Team

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Dear Disclosure Team,

As I have explained, I believe that your refusal to accept that my Freedom of Information request is a Freedom of Information request is an error.

In any event, you have failed to identify what is the actual reason why that request is not, in your view, a Freedom of Information request. Can you please clarify this?

Yours sincerely,

Eduard Popescu