Minutes and Agendas of the Executive Committee

Dear Executive Office (Northern Ireland),

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, please provide copies of:

- the agenda for each meeting called; and
- the minutes of the proceedings and decisions of

The Executive Committee (set out in the Northern Ireland Act 1998) from the restoration of the Stormont Institutions (January 2020) to the 30 April 2021.

Yours faithfully,

Robert John Park

Dear Executive Office (Northern Ireland),

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Executive Office (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Minutes and Agendas of the Executive Committee'.

Thank-you for setting out your rationale for refusing my information request for Minutes and Agendas of the Executive Committee. I have carefully considered the arguments set out in your response, both for and against release of this information.

In applying exemption set out in Section 35(1) of the Act, it casts the view that the Minutes and the Agenda contain the sole instruments of the machinery of government in formulating policy. I would like your internal review to consider the following:

AGENDA - sensitive matters on the agenda can be redacted should they need to be, but the agenda paper I am seeking for release to the public domain would detail the date, time, schedule, chairperson, members and items that are for consideration.

MINUTES - a brief set of official minutes that confirms final items that were considered, disposed of and the **final decisions** made. The contributions from Ministers or advisers could be redacted from any brief minutes. I am not seeking policy formulation papers or notes that are possibly appended to any minutes.

I believe that in good governance a balance towards transparency is needed and agree that contributions from Ministers or advisers/officials towards any policy at times needs to be framed to reflect, in the case of the Executive Committee, the power sharing structures of Stormont, would not need to be set out verbose in official minutes.

In the course of the internal review, I would also ask you to consider separately the case for refusing to publish Agendas from publishing the official final-decision Minutes of the Executive Committee.

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

Yours faithfully,

Robert John Park

Dear TEO FOI,

I would be grateful for an update in this request.

The ICO has intervened and I understand the Commissioner has compelled The Executive Office to respond.

I would ask for an update within 5 days, no later than Wednesday 24 November 2021.

Yours sincerely,

Robert John Park

Dear TEO FOI,

Please supply me an update to my FOI and the requested interval review.

I would be grateful if you can confirm and publish correspondence you have received from the Information Commissioner relating to my FOI request and the internal review.

It has been over nine months since the initial request was submitted.

Yours sincerely,

Robert John Park

Dear Executive Office (Northern Ireland),

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Executive Office (Northern Ireland)'s handling of my FOI request 'Minutes and Agendas of the Executive Committee'.

I request an internal review of the delay into my previous request for a statutory internal review of the original decision to reject my FOI request.

The information commissioner has already directed you to reply to me in a timely fashion of ten days and that direction was made last autumn.

A copy of this is being sent to the ICO caseworker assigned to my original complaint to them about this FOI request.

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

Yours faithfully,

Robert John Park