Dear Home Office,

I hope this finds you well. I kindly ask you to release, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Equality Impact Assessment that was carried out regarding an immigration enforcement pilot scheme codenamed 'Operation Skybreaker.' This was a pilot scheme that ran for a period of around 5 months, starting in July 2014, in the London boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Greenwich, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.

Yours faithfully,

Mary Atkinson

Dear Home Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Home Office's handling of my FOI request 'Equality Impact Assessment for immigration enforcement pilot scheme,' reference 53826.

The request for the Equality Impact Assessment into Operation Skybreaker, an immigration enforcement pilot undertaken in 2014, was refused under Section 31 (1) (e). The refusal notes that some information for this request is covered by the aforementioned exemption under the Freedom of Information Act - however, none of the requested information was supplied, even that which would not or would not be likely to prejudice the enforcement of immigration controls.

The Immigration Enforcement Secretariat concluded that it would not be in the public interest to disclose any of the requested information, because to do so could theoretically assist potential offenders in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the UK's borders. The onus is on the public authority in question to explain how that prejudice would arise and why it is likely to occur as a result of disclosing an assessment of how the authority planned to comply with its obligations under the Equality Act in the course of a pilot scheme conducted and concluded in 2014. It is noted that said scheme has already been the subject of a publicly available report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.

It is my conviction that the balance of public interest in this case lies in favour of disclosing the requested information, in order that members of the public are assured of the rigourousness of equality impact assessments pertaining to pilot schemes like the one in question, which involved members of the public from all walks of life.

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,

Mary Atkinson

Dear FOI Requests,

Please be aware that the response to this internal review request is now overdue. I’d be grateful if you would provide a full response as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Atkinson

Dear FOI Requests,

Please be aware that a response to my internal review request is now extremely overdue. According to your own guidelines, and the timeline set out in an acknowledgement received previously, a full response was due on 18/07/2019. Please note that by the end of business today, the response will be 9 working days overdue.

Please publish a full response to my internal review by COB on 02/08/2019. If I have not received a full and satisfactory response by then, I will have to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Atkinson