Dear Information Rights Team 

In response to FOI2023/00205 you disclosed a series of documents used by the Post Office Security Team including one which used racist identification codes, believed to have been used as late as 2012.

According to your corporate website, Post Office subsequently established an investigation to determine how the document containing identification codes with racist descriptors came to be created; and to establish whether the codes were actively used on Post Office investigation or prosecution documentation and for what reason.

Last updated on 16 June 2023, your website reports that Post Office’s investigation still continues into how and when descriptors containing racist and offensive language alongside ID codes was added. It adds that barrister Jeremy Scott-Joynt has been engaged as an external legal advisor to review all evidence, to contribute to the direction of the investigation and to assist in drafting the Final Investigation Report.

Please can you disclose the Final Investigation Report. If it has not yet been completed, please can you state your expected date of completion along with reasons for the delay. I was originally advised by you to come back at the end of September 2023 for an update regarding the investigation but none has been forthcoming:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/p...

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Dear Information Rights Team

You have provided no reason for the delay in response to this request, no grounds for refusing disclosure and no expected date by which you will be in a position to respond.

This request is a follow-on from FOI 2023/00205 submitted in April 2022. I was informed by you in July 2023 that you were unable to respond to the request due to the Post Office’s QC led inquiry into the use of racist descriptors in Post Office documents.

In October 2023 I requested an internal review into the handling of my request. Your internal review found that you had acted in accordance with FOIA obligations because your Final Report had not been completed. You stated that ‘there are still no further updates on this investigation and until the entire process is completed, Post Office is unable to provide the information requested’. Whilst my subsequent complaint to the ICO yielded partial disclosure, you made no reference to the completion of your Final Investigation Report to determine ‘how the document containing identification codes with racist descriptors came to be created; and to establish whether the codes were actively used on Post Office investigation or prosecution documentation and for what reason’.

This is the document I am requesting to see under FOI2023/00716. Please review your response of 25 January. If I do not receive a more satisfactory response by 30 January I will request an internal review and will not hesitate to return to the ICO.

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Dear Information Rights Team

I am requesting an internal review into your handling of FOI2023/00716.

On 25 January 2024 I was informed: ‘Unfortunately, we are not in a position to respond to your information
request today, for which we apologise. However, we are processing your
request and will aim to update you very soon’.

On 26 January I expressed my dissatisfaction of your having provided no reason for the delay in response, no grounds for refusing disclosure and no expected date by which you would be in a position to respond. I informed you that if I did not receive a more satisfactory response by 30 January I would request an internal review.

As you have not responded to my concerns I am requesting an internal review into your delayed handling of this request.

Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Shaikh

Dear Information Rights Team,

Regarding the delay in response to FOI2023/00716, being ‘extremely busy’ is not a legitimate excuse under the Freedom Of Information Act for failing to respond to a FOI request.

It is not clear if you are refusing to conduct an internal review, I hope that you are not.

I waited from May 2023 until January 2024 for you to process a related request (FOI2023/00205). Disclosure in that case was dependant, I was informed, on the completion of the KC led investigation whose findings I am now seeking to obtain under the current request.

I was originally advised by you to expect an update regarding that investigation at the end of September 2023. I am still waiting. You have given no indication in your recent correspondence of whether the investigation has been completed, no expected date of completion and no explanation for the reason for the delay.

It was only the intervention of the ICO last December which prompted a response from you to that request, albeit very limited in content.

In the circumstances I am not prepared to wait again for the Post Office to impose more indefinite delays whilst it prevaricates over disclosure, before requesting an internal review.

If I have not received a substantive response to this (second) request for an internal review of FOI2023/00716 within 20 working days I shall refer the matter once again to the ICO.

Yours sincerely
Eleanor Shaikh