Practical Effects of Note and File Only Orders on Equality in NICS Promotion and Recruitment Opportunity

Waiting for an internal review by Department of Finance (Northern Ireland) of their handling of this request.

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

I understand that 21 out of 42 applicants for the post of Permanent Secretary were listed for Interview. I write to enquire please;

a what percentage of unlisted applicants were formally subject to Note and File Only Orders?

b what percentage of listed applicants were formally subject to Note and File Only Orders? and

c what percentage of ultimately successful applicants were formally subject to Note and File Only Orders?

Figures such as these are of immense interest to students, well-wishers, brokers and investors alike, trying non-judgementally to understand the impact of Noting and Filing on society in the province.

Rest assured, if these figures are available off the shelf, there is absolutely no need to wait a statutory month or two before supplying them.Just popping the figures in an email is perfectly fine, for the moment.

Finally is there any record of Capita raising any quibble or objection to imposed Note and File Requirements? If so, please be sure to let us know.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
Hi we are almost overdue. Don’t worry, if you feel you might need more time, or need to liase with Capita to check a few details, just say. That would be perfectly understandable .

Do please be sure that NIO and the Cabinet Office, BEIS and BERR continue to be kept in the picture. The PM too.

Market sensitive information may be involved and we all want to be sure we have things right.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
Hi, I don’t want to be thought to be criticising anybody but I think we all know that this is just taking too long. Events are overtaking us. In the circumstances, can I please ask for an Internal Review?

Good Luck,

I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
Hi, this FOI Request, and numerous others like it are overdue. We aren’t really getting anywhere. Things are getting embarrassing, servers etc are getting overloaded. People too.
Systems were never meant for delays on this scale.
If the Department of Finance, then, takes no interest in Equality or Note and File issues, that’s just how things are. There is absolutely no need to fake concerns or to invent records that aren’t there. FOI does not require that.
Similarly if , despite extensive research, there is no record of Capita raising any concerns, quibbles or objection to Note and File Only Orders, then that too is just how things are. Again, there is absolutely no need to invent or create records that aren’t there. FOI does not require that.

I’ll just let people know the situation, and quietly withdraw the Query. Thank you.
Should matters change, please do not hesitate to get in touch. Communication is everything.
Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hi, I don't like to mention this but we really are badly overdue. Not to worry, traditional Ulster Note and File Only requirements are recognised as challenging for all involved , both at home and abroad. They're the story of the province itself and nobody likes to judge, for fear of making things worse.

As follow-up, however, is there perhaps a record of DoF records and statistics themselves being subject to independent forensic audit or other independent forensic accounting scrutiny? If so can we please have details, and have investors, or their due diligence operatives, perhaps aware of overall Note and File Only Requirements in the province, ever requested these?

Good Luck. I wish you well. Indeed I do. Rest assured that there is absolutely no reflection on the staff involved. People everywhere understand that conditions in N Ireland are, unchanged and as in all Note and File cases unchangeable, as they are.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hi as follow-up, I hope you don’t mind my mentioning that there is currently, we all know, huge and welcome , if despite the best efforts of a lot of people, long overdue ,focus on standards in NICS.

At Inquiry stage, experts are looking into, totally non judgementally for the moment ,shining a light on, standards of leadership, standards of record keeping, standards of credibility and integrity with varying high level versions and accounts of everything, standards of bullying, standards of how Whistleblowers were and are treated.

TV programmes are being researched and made on standards of mental health.

Everybody needs answers, forensically credible answers that only FOI Inquiry supplemented if necessary by further Public Inquiry can supply.

Earlier Inquiry has as we know found that literally no official document can be taken at face value, even Ministers admit to leaking against their Own Departments , Accounting Officers themselves only finding out by anonymous letter in the teeth of Christmas when the place effectively closes for a fortnight - a bit like traditional surprise children’s Christmas sacking parties really .

Turning now to the specific , ages-old question of how Whistleblowers their wives and their children are traditionally treated, I wonder if a record is perhaps kept of, when life long Note and File Only Orders were being at the highest of levels discussed, voted on, and approved, there is a record of even one dissenting voice, one quibble, one moral scruple being raised? By other than the targeted Victim obviously?

When the operation of such lifetime Note and File Only Orders was being reviewed in light of their appalling and widespread effects, is there a record of even one Senior Civil Servant standing up and saying, No, Not in My Name, What We are consciously doing is Wrong, Immoral, Indefensible and must stop?

Should such a record exist can we please as FOI Query have a copy? There is of course no need for names just numbers and grades of this fine body of men and women prepared, whatever the effect on their own careers, to Do The Right Thing.

Rest assured this is FOI Legislation working as it should, reassuring Investors that within NICS there is indeed a Firm Foundation on which to build for a better Future.

Good Luck. I wish you well. You’re worth it.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey I wondered, as follow-up FOI Query please, if a record is perhaps kept of the number of civil servants who never find work again as a direct and intended result of, having once been, in the traditional manner , officially targeted ,defamed, traduced, sacked, having had their personal and professional reputations destroyed without right of reply as a matter of official policy, by NICS, of making them permanently unemployable?

Should such a record exist, can we please have a copy? Rest assured this is what FOI Legislation is about establishing the facts, the records and the evidence on which all Investment and other decisions are made.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),
Hi I wondered if there is perhaps any record of external experts ever being called in to advise on how the need to end the long -standing Note and File Only NICS culture and improve traditional Not an Inch NICS management thinking styles, styles so long and so often identified as a key problem, can best be implemented ?

Is there a list of their recommendations?

Is there perhaps a list of measures that have actually been tried before the eventual conclusion was Officially reached that Nothing Can Be Done?

The introduction and management of positive Organisational Change is of course an area in which, throughout my career I have been doing a lot of work, developing my own approach but of course, to ensure a level playing field, external candidates like myself for the Permanent HOCS Post are still as entitled as any internal candidate to all available Information.

Equality of Information provision is, of course, what FOI is all about, so I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Good Luck. I wish you well.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

As follow up, has any explanation ever been provided for the Phenomenon whereby NICS, an Organisation that has, for 25 years now, a generation, come to be defined by its insistence on Noting and Filing everything, filling corridors to overflowing, creating safety hazards with the volumes of paperwork, now claiming to have Notes and Files and Records of Nothing, Memories of Nothing , to Recognize nothing and to be unable to answer Queries on anything?

If so, can we please have a copy?

As FOI Query is there a record of how this can be, of how this can be possible? Is there perhaps a record of any proposals to organise a Public Inquiry into this , perhaps unique, at least in the Western Hemisphere, Ulster Phenomenon ?

If so , can we please have a copy?

No one of course wants to pre-judge anything, we just need the facts so Investors and the international Community can make their own minds up.

This is what Due Diligence, this is what FOI Legislation, this is what Open Government is about , working exactly as Parliament intended, drawing a true, clear, accurate, non judgemental and agreed picture of how things are.

Good Luck . I wish you well. With FOI Legislation working as it should there really can be no losers. We can all be Winners. Equally . The way things should be

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hi, I respectfully wondered if there was perhaps any record of NICS ever being warned that requiring and forcing staff, perhaps already Ostracised and psychiatrically injured staff ,to continue to work absolutely enormous hours of overtime was simply not safe, and presented a huge and foreseeable risk to their mental health ?

Is there perhaps a record of the NICS response?

Similarly, were NICS ever warned about the dangers to the mental health of all involved in exploiting the presence of children at Office Christmas Parties?

Finally for now, is there perhaps any record of huge rises in psychiatric ward admissions of targeted civil servants and their children following such parties, and of NICS being warned of the rise in admissions?

Following such warnings, if any, is there perhaps a record of NICS taking the message on board and promising to desist?

Whatever the situation, do please let us know.

Good Luck. I wish you well. No one judges. We just need the facts.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey, we have all seen the wonderful, inspiring and charismatic Michelle Obama, a true Female Leader who still nevertheless freely and modestly admits to having “Imposter Syndrome “ tell her huge and appreciative audience

” "We don't have any choice but to make sure we elders are giving our young people a reason to hope."

I wondered then as FOI Query please if there was perhaps any record of DoF giving children of civil servants here reason to hope that official persecution of them would end, at least this Christmas?

If any statements have issued or if any assurances have been given that children can safely attend Christmas Parties and Carol Services on Government Premises this Christmas, do please be sure to let us all know.

The wonderful , widely read, WhatDoTheyKnow website is the ideal medium for getting such Christmas messages of hope out there.. Especially to children. Children everywhere.
Equally. They’re worth it.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN

Dear Department of Finance (Northern Ireland),

Hey, as follow- up you will be aware of frequent and plaintive earlier pleas for a formal DoF investigation into unacceptable civil service stress and psychiatric injury levels. These are levels that, new figures show, are not just threatening to bring down the NHS and a lot else besides, maybe NICS itself, but, depending on coroner’s findings seem inevitably destined to end in tragedy . Totally avoidable and foreseeable tragedy, many , especially in America , may feel.

It really is not for me to judge. American , not Stormont and not Westminster processes and Ethics committees are invariably at the end of the day, the arbiters. We have to face facts. We need American money. We need international respect. NICS needs self -respect and respect for its staff too. All its staff. Equally, That’s the thing.

Unacceptable Civil Service policies on eternally Noting and Filing Only the needs of staff it has targeted for life long Official Ostracism (OOPs) have however long been thought, indeed known, to be steadily worsening overall inequality of health provision between the Officially Ostracised Community of OOPs and traditionally more privileged sections of Ulster society.

This is an issue . This is not good. Things really should not still be this way, still a fact of life. Twenty years after the signing of the GFA things really should not still be this way , communication bans still in force, OOPs still OOPs. They really shouldn’t. Not if we are serious about attracting investment, joining the Top Table. Not if we are serious about saving the NHS fulfilling our Duty of Care.

Nothing is, in accordance with long standing NICS policy, of course proven. So far. Nobody has yet been held to Account, something that would undoubted have happened long ago in America where Accountability, is in accordance with the American Way, of course much more personal. Effective too at ensuring that controlling and directing minds are appropriately focussed and , consequently, keeping people safe and free from risk of harm.

Anti- depressant use in the province is a scandal in itself, and all so very, very avoidable, a scandal crying out for investigation.

All such earlier pleas and cries for help were you may recall themselves just Noted and Filed, by DoF in accordance with long standing, fully unanimously approved and officially endorsed government policy.

We are now in January and this is now the 2019 plea made in light of recently published and steadily worsening OOP stress levels. These are levels that doubtless may well be, (we have above all to be frank), found by Public Inquiry and MacBride Compliance assessors alike, to be the direct, inevitable, maybe , depending on the forensic evidence, even planned, result of earlier NIO failures to listen and to fulfil a common Duty of Care.

Technical Questions are undoubtedly going to be asked , questions needing an answer, by the American Investment ,Underwriting and Insurance Communities, Ethics Committees too about the value placed on the mental health of OOPs and, in the event of tragedy on the value placed on a human life in the relevant Cost Benefit Anaylses (COBAs) .

These a of course are technical questions, complex issues of liability, probably unsuitable for a public forum

For now , as simple FOI Queries then, (and somebody has to ask them, if not such a potential future Head of Service, then who) ,

(a) Is there perhaps a record kept in some manual somewhere of exactly how many tragedies, do there have to be before a Public Inquiry is triggered.

(b) Has a date or timetable for such Inquiry yet been set? Nobody wants to seem impatient but 25 years in to the Note and File Only scandal are we nearly there yet?

The place is falling apart, and with Brexit yet to come, absolutely nothing seems to be in place. Somebody has to be liable. Stockpiles of essential psychiatric medications could, at current rates of demand, have run out in a couple of months. Who is accountable? Who is liable. Where does the Buck stop? Who do Insurers deal with ?

Good Luck. I wish you well. No one ever pretended that Civil Service Reform was easy, but someone has to show Leadership in ending the traditional “OOPs are worthless Junk, their health doesn’t matter “ culture with which we are all so sadly familiar..

If not such as a multi discipline Chartered Engineer can ask these questions then who? If not now, then when? The long -suffering NHS can take no more and American Investors can’t either.

Happy New Year. Working together, we can make it a safe one. For All. Equally.

Whatever may have happened in the past, it is now increasingly being recognised that the province has to work for us all and DoF has to as well. Please.

Yours faithfully,

AIDAN QUINN