HS2 Graph / Model

The request was refused by Cabinet Office.

Dear Cabinet Office,

Can I have a copy of the evidence on HS2 passenger growth, presented to Boris Johnson in January 2020, as described in Dom Cummings Substack article.

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

Cabinet Office FOI Team,

Our ref: FOI2021/12794

Dear Mike Haville,

Thank you for your request for information which was received on 14th
June. Your request is being handled under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 ('the Act').

The Act requires that a response must be given promptly, and in any event
within 20 working days. We will therefore aim to reply at the latest by
13th July.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

Cabinet Office

Cabinet Office FOI Team,

1 Attachment

Dear Mike Haville

The date that the response is due for your request, FOI2021/12794, has
been changed to 10th August. Please see the attached letter.

Kind Regards

FOI Team

Cabinet Office

Dear Cabinet Office,

The information that was presented to the PM should already be in the public sphere, if it is not there is something wrong with the transparency on HS2 project as any information that is available to the PM to evaluate the project should also be readily available to MPs & the public.

As such I cannot see any reason why you have delayed release.

If you are saying that the information came from somewhere else & you are not going to release it,
just jump to an internal review & reply back why this info is not available to MPs & public

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

FOI Team Mailbox, Cabinet Office

Dear Mike Haville, 
Thank you for your email. 
While the process of responding to your request for information is ongoing
it will not be possible to conduct an internal review.
It is occasionally necessary where a qualified exemption applies to extend
the 20 working day time limit for issuing a response in order to fully
consider the public interest. As was explained in our letter of 13 July we
hope to be able to issue you with a response by 10 August. 
Once a response has been issued then we will be happy to conduct an
internal review if you still wish for it.
Kind regards,
FOI Team

Cabinet Office

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Cabinet Office FOI Team,

1 Attachment

Dear Mike Haville

The date that the response is due for your request, FOI2021/12794, has
been changed to 8th September. Please see the attached letter.

Kind Regards

FOI Team

Cabinet Office

Dear Cabinet Office,

Under ICO Regs FOI's should be answered, within 20 days & at most 40 days. The way you are using
Section 35 means that you could extend indefinitely.

You have extended it once on July 13th using Section 35 & now you seek to extend it again using section 35.
You can not use section 35 in the case of this data as section 35 a), b), c) or d) do not apply.
The policy has been formulated & a ministerial decision has been made & acted upon.

I am not asking for anything that is of future importance as the decision on HS2 has been
made & the data shown to the PM should be available to MPs & the public.

Please answer my FOI request by return.

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

Dear Cabinet Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Cabinet Office's handling of my FOI request 'HS2 Graph / Model'.

As you have abused the ICO laws by extending a request in such a way that it cannot be challenged

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

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

FOI Team Mailbox, Cabinet Office

Dear Mike Haville, 
Thank you for your email,

While the process of responding to your request for information is ongoing
it will not be possible to conduct an internal review.

It is occasionally necessary to extend the 20 working day time limit for
issuing a response. The Freedom of Information act allows a public body to
extend the 20 working day time limit in order to consider the balance of
the public interest in relation to a request.

Please be assured that we will respond to your request once the balance of
public interest has been considered and If you are unsatisfied with that
response you will be able to request an internal review.

Kind Regards

FOI Team

Cabinet Office

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Dear FOI Team Mailbox,

You did not answer my FOI Aug 12th

Under ICO Regs FOI's should be answered, within 20 days & at most 40 days. The way you are using
Section 35 means that you could extend indefinitely.

You have extended it once on July 13th using Section 35 & now you seek to extend it again using section 35.
You can not use section 35 in the case of this data as section 35 a), b), c) or d) do not apply.
The policy has been formulated & a ministerial decision has been made & acted upon.

I am not asking for anything that is of future importance as the decision on HS2 has been
made & the data shown to the PM should be available to MPs & the public.

Please answer my FOI request by return.

Yours sincerely,

Mike Haville

FOI Team Mailbox, Cabinet Office

Dear Mike Haville, 
Thank you for your reply.
While we are still working to respond to your FOI request we won't be able
to comment on the substance of that response until it has been issued.
Please be assured that we will issue the response in due course.
Kind Regards

FOI Team

Cabinet Office

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Cabinet Office FOI Team,

1 Attachment

Dear Mike Haville,

Please find attached our response to your recent Freedom of Information
request (reference FOI2021/12794).

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team

Cabinet Office

Dear Cabinet Office,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Cabinet Office's handling of my FOI request 'HS2 Graph / Model'.
FOI Reference: FOI2021/12794

This is information should be in public view as it was shown to the PM as evidence that he should give the NTP & unless there is something very amiss, should have been presented in the HS2 business case.

As you may be aware, ICO guidance on Section 35 exemptions states: "Once a policy decision has been made, the exemption cannot apply to any background statistical information, even if it is contained in a ministerial communication". (https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...)

As you may be aware, when a public interest test is conducted, it must relate specifically to the exemption in use.

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

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

Cabinet Office FOI Team,

Dear Mike Haville,

Thank you for your request for an internal review (reference
IR2021/17775), which was prompted by our response to your request for
information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We shall endeavour to complete the internal review and respond to you
within 20 working days.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team

Dear Cabinet Office,

It has now been 6 months since I requested an internal review - when can I have a reaply?

Yours faithfully,

Mike Haville

FOI Team Mailbox, Cabinet Office

Dear Mike Haville, 
I am very sorry that you have not yet received a response to your request.
I am emailing to inform you that your case is still under consideration,
and I hope to be able to provide you with a response shortly.
Kind regards, 
Cabinet Office FOI Team

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Dear FOI Team Mailbox,

Under FOI Act you should reply within 20 days - Please reply by return or earlier

Yours sincerely,

Mike Haville

Freedom of Information Act is very clear. Public authorities are required to respond to FOI requests no later than 20 working days after they were made.

The law itself says “a public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.”

Dear FOI Team Mailbox,

The ICO has requested that you provide me with an internal review by 11/2/22 for my FOI request 'HS2 Graph / Model'. FOI Reference: FOI2021/12794

Please note that this is information should be in public view as it was shown to the PM as evidence that he should give the NTP & unless there is something very amiss, should have also been presented in the HS2 business case.

Also please note, ICO guidance on Section 35 exemptions states: "Once a policy decision has been made, the exemption cannot apply to any background statistical information, even if it is contained in a ministerial communication". (https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...)

As you may be aware, when a public interest test is conducted, it must relate specifically to the exemption in use.

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

Yours sincerely,

Mike Haville

Mike Haville left an annotation ()

Mike Haville
Sent by email to: mike.haville@btinternet.com
29 January 2022
Dear Mr Haville,
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)
Information request to Cabinet Office
Thank you for your correspondence of 21 January in which you complain about the time taken for the above public authority to carry out an internal review you requested on 1 September 2021.
The right to complain to the Information Commissioner is given under section 50 of FOIA. However, we may not consider a complaint under section 50, if for example:
 there is a long delay before bringing a complaint to our attention; or
 you have not completed any complaints procedure which the public authority provides.
Before accepting complaints, the Commissioner requires that public authorities have the chance to respond to a request for an internal review of its decision.
Although there is no statutory time set out in the FOIA within which public authorities must complete a review, the Commissioner considers that a reasonable time for completing an internal review is 20 working days from the
date of the request for review.
The maximum amount of time taken should not be more than 40 working days.
This longer period may be justified if an internal review is complex, requires consultation with third parties or there is a high volume of relevant information covered by the request. There will sometimes be legitimate reasons why an extension longer than 40 working days is needed.
I have written to the public authority to provide it with a copy of your request for internal review, and have instructed it to issue you with a response within 10
working days.

We will use intelligence we gather from individual cases to inform our insight and compliance function. This will help us meet the goal in our ‘Openness by Design’
strategy to improve standards of accountability, openness and transparency in a digital age. We aim to increase the impact of FOIA and EIR enforcement activity
by targeting public authorities’ systemic non-compliance. This is consistent with the approaches set out in our Regulatory Action Policy. If you remain dissatisfied once you receive the internal review decision and would
like us to look into the matter, please contact us and include a copy of the internal review decision.
Thank you for bringing these concerns to the attention of the Information Commissioner.

If you have any further queries, or if you do not receive a review response within the required timeframe, please contact me.

Yours sincerely,
Patrick Mitchell
Case Officer

Cabinet Office FOI Team,

1 Attachment

Dear Mike Haville,

Please find attached our response to your request for an Internal Review
(reference IR2021/17775).

Yours sincerely,

FOI Team

Mike Haville left an annotation ()

Feb 22nd ICO have told me that complaint has now been accepted as eligible for further consideration and will be allocated to a case officer as soon as possible.

ICO ASAP is 6 months currently so Aug 22 might get to talk to a case officer

Mike Haville left an annotation ()

ICO have come back & said that it is now 9 months before case is allocated - although for case IC-184225-X3K8, which I applied in June 1st 22, I got allocated a case officer on Sept 7th 22 = 3 months

Go Figure

Mike Haville left an annotation ()

Looks like a lot questions ref Boris

From ICO:

We apologise for the delay in allocating this case, involving the Cabinet Office, for investigation. Unfortunately, there has been a high volume of cases involving the Cabinet Office and that has led to knock-on capacity issues in allocating these cases.

Additionally, we have also changed the way in which cases are allocated. More information concerning this can be found here: ICO launches consultation on how it prioritises FOI complaints | ICO

We do aim to assign your case to a case officer by the end of this month, however.

We hope this clarifies the situation for you and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Yours sincerely,

Patrick Mitchell
Case Officer
Information Commissioner's Office

Mike Haville left an annotation ()

Boris must have generated a lot of refused FOI's as my request has only just got to top of ICO waiting list on Feb 2 2022, just under 12 months after application - see below

3 February 2023
Our reference: IC-151483-R8T9

Dear Mike Haville,
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)/Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 (EIR)
Your request to the Cabinet Office dated 14 June 2021 about HS2 passenger
growth.

Further to our phone call of yesterday, I write to inform you that your case has now been allocated to me to investigate. This letter will explain how I intend to do this. It will
also provide you with contact details so that you can get in touch with me if you need to.
What happens now
Where possible the Information Commissioner prefers complaints to be resolved informally and we ask both parties to be open to compromise. With this in mind, I will
write to the public authority and ask it to revisit your request. It may wish to reverse or amend its position. If it does, it will contact you again directly about this.
In any event, it must provide us with its full and final arguments in support of its position. Once I receive its arguments, I will consider its reply before either contacting
you to discuss the matter further or preparing a decision notice.
Further information is available on our website:
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/our-inf...

The request
On 14 June 2021 you requested:
“Can I have a copy of the evidence on HS2 passenger growth, presented to Boris
Johnson in January 2020, as described in Dom Cummings Substack article.”
On 1 September 2021 the Cabinet Office responded, refusing the request under section
35(1)(a) (government policy) of FOIA.
You requested an internal review on the same day.
The Cabinet Office provided the outcome to its internal review on 15 February 2022. It
upheld its previous position.
You wish to challenge the Cabinet Office’s refusal of the request.
My investigation will look at whether the Cabinet Office is correct when it refuses to
disclose the information.
If you have any queries, or want to add any information, please reply directly to this
email. I can be contacted directly at 0330 313 1879.
Yours sincerely
Alice Gradwell
Senior Case Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office
For information about what we do with personal data see our privacy notice