Engineer Retention
Dear Royal Air Force,
I am enquiring as to the recent Engineering Retention emails sent to certain groups from the Career Manager, as directed by DCom Cap.
I would like to know how many emails where sent.
How many responses were recieved as of the date action is taken to investigate this FoI.
The result of those responses in graphical, or percentage format highlighting accepted, rejected.
I would also like copies of the responses, with personal details removed.
Yours faithfully,
Tony
Dear Tony,
Please find attached our response to your recent enquiry.
Regards
Information Rights Team
Dear Tony Lincoln,
I acknowledge receipt of your Freedom of Information request which has
been given the reference FOI 2023/05566. The Freedom of Information Act
requires a response to be provided to a request under the Act within 20
working days from date of receipt and we therefore aim to respond to you
by 31 May 2023.
Yours sincerely,
Air Command Secretariat
Dear Tony Lincoln,
Please find attached response to your recent request.
Yours sincerely,
Air Command Secretariat
Dear [email address],
Thank you for numbers detailed within the letter.
Please could also furnish me with the replies, minus any sensitive/personal data. This is to understand the reasons for rejection.
Thanks in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Tony
Dear Tony Lincoln,
Thank you for your e-mail reiterating your request for the following information:
"Please could also furnish me with the replies, minus any sensitive/personal data. This is to understand the reasons for rejection."
Please can I draw your attention to the paragraph in the response as follows:
"Individual responses to CM are being withheld under Section 41(1)(b) as release would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. Section 41 is an absolute exemption and is not subject to public interest testing."
Please note that the offers of Extension of Service are made as part of the Career Management process. Any offers and subsequent responses are deemed to be confidential between Job Holder and Career Manager.
If you are not satisfied with this response or wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail [email address]). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.
Yours sincerely,
Air Command Secretariat
Dear [email address],
Thank you for your response. I will leave it at that, thanks again for your help.
Yours sincerely,
Tony
Dear Royal Air Force,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Royal Air Force's handling of my FOI request 'Engineer Retention'.
Judge Megarry advocated that; ‘…if the circumstances are such
that any reasonable man standing in the shoes of the recipient
of the information would have realised, that upon reasonable
grounds the information was being given to him in confidence
then this should suffice to impose upon him the equitable
obligation of confidence’.
The above paragraph details the reasonable test for confidentiality which the reason my request was rejected. I do not believe this has used.
Unless there are implicit instructions that the reply is in confidence, then further investigations are required, not a simple dismissal.
The offers to extend their EoS was a simple email. It concluded with "If you wish to continue please reply to this email at your earliest convenience, copy in your LM (minimum WO) within 20 days of reciept". Therefore no comments were expected other than those accepting the offer.
Therefore, the replies given, some of which were rather substantial from my reports, were freely given as they clearly wanted to share this information to whomever the recipient was. In this case, it was not the Career Manager, as SNCO, but several lower ranks undertaking the administrative burden of these request.
For this reason, I believe this information detailing the rejection is not confidential, it was intended to be seen broadly. Although I do accept that some details that will identify an individual such as service number, names, d.o.b, address etc should be removed.
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,
Tony
Dear Mr Lincoln,
Thank you for your email dated 25 May 2023 requesting an internal review for FOI2023/05566.
The Department's target for completing internal reviews is 20 working days and we therefore aim to complete the review and respond to you by 26 June 2023. While we are working hard to achieve this, in the interests of providing you with a more realistic indication of when you should expect a response, we should advise that the majority are currently taking between 20 and 40 working days to complete.
The internal review will involve a full, independent reconsideration of the handling of the Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act as well as the final decision.
Yours sincerely,
MOD Information Rights Compliance Team
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