Honorary Rank holders
Dear Ministry of Defence,
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from the Cabinet Office:
1. A list of those who currently hold honorary ranks or honorary appointments in the British Armed Forces.
2. Please provide this divided into branches of the Armed Forces.
3. Given the names of all commissioned officers appear in the London Gazette, please do not redact any names unless it is for operational reasons.
Please provide the information in the form of a readable PDF or an Excel document.
If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under the Section 16 obligations of the Act, as to how I can refine my request.
If you can identify any ways that my request could be refined I would be grateful for any further advice and assistance.
If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me via email I will be very happy to clarify what I am asking for and discuss the request.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Blaise
Dear Ministry of Defence,
Please ignore my error in the first sentence and consider it to the Ministry of Defence, not the Cabinet Office.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Blaise
Dear Ministry of Defence,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Defence's handling of my FOI request 'Honorary Rank holders'.
It is now several weeks late.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Blaise
Dear Sir,
Please find enclosed a response from the Ministry of Defence to your
Freedom Of Information Act Request. I apologise for the delay in sending
this to you.
Regards,
Defence People Secretariat
Dear Mr Blaise,
Thank you for your email of 9 January 2021.
While we would not normally conduct an internal review until a substantive response has been issued, we have reviewed the handling of your request and it is clear that MOD has not provided a response within the statutory timescale under section 10 of the Act. Following investigation, we can confirm that your request has been assigned to the Defence People Secretariat for response and that staff are actively working to provide you with a substantive response to your request, our reference FOI2020/12739.
I can advise that the delay in this case has been due to the restrictions in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the volume and nature of the workload placed on the Defence People Secretariat at this time. We have, however, asked Defence People Secretariat to provide the substantive response to your request by 22 January 2021.
If you do not receive a response by this date, or remain dissatisfied on receipt of the substantive response, please contact us again.
Regards,
MOD Information Rights Compliance Team
Dear CIO-FOI-IR (MULTIUSER),
Thank you for your email. I have now received the response however I will now be requesting an Internal Review as I do not believe all the held information has been provided to me.
In my request I asked for all honorary rank holders however in the response there are no foreign royals. I am aware of at least two foreign royals who hold honorary commissions or appointments in HM Armed forces.
Yours sincerely,
Edward Blaise
Dear Mr Blaise,
Thank you for your email of 19 January 2021.
Unfortunately, there has been a misunderstanding in the handling of your original request. MOD's previous search for information did not include those members of foreign Royal families currently holding honorary commissions or appointments in UK Armed Forces, which was an oversight on our part. If there was any doubt, perhaps your request should have been clarified.
Would you be content for this element of your request to be processed as a new request rather than handled as a complaint, and then the relevant MOD business area will write to you directly?
Yours sincerely,
MOD Information Rights Compliance Team
Dear CIO-FOI-IR (MULTIUSER),
I am happy to withdraw the Internal Review if the additional information can be provided as a response to a 'new FOI', please consider this email a request for it. As someone not familiar with the MoD systems, I did not expect to need to specifically make a request for foreign royals, but I am glad we have clarified the situation.
Yours sincerely,
Edward Blaise
Dear Mr Blaise,
Please find enclosed a response to your FOIA request on foreign royals who
hold honorary ranks in the UK Armed Forces. I apologise for the delay in
sending this to you.
Regards,
Defence People Secretariat
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