Response time and Correspondence with other departments
Dear Thames Valley Police,
Please can you tell me the following (please note that I do not need specific information just a general overview will do fine):
1) What are the main issues would Thames Valley Police need to inform MI5 about?
2) What is the average time that you contact MI5 about an issue upon discovering it
3) would the All face to face meetings \ letters \ email, etc be then relised to the National Archives under the 20 year rule
4) What is the average response time for a representitve for MI5 attending the issue.
Yours faithfully,
Jonathan Mantle
Dear Mr Mantle
Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) places a duty
on Thames Valley Police to assist applicants in making a successful
request. You have indicated that you “do not need specific information
just a general overview,” unfortunately, under the provisions of the Act,
Thames Valley Police are not required to create an overview and therefore
your request is not considered to be a valid request, under Section 8 of
the Act. You may wish to re-word your request, however, we are mindful
that Thames Valley Police are likely to engaged Section 23: Information
supplied by, or concerning, certain security bodies, to a request for
information held that relates directly to a security body listed in
Section 23 of the FOIA. Section 23 is an absolute and class based
exemption which would not require evidence of harm, or a public interest
test.
There is a wealth of information regarding MI5 on their website, including
the below;
[3]https://www.mi5.gov.uk/resources-and-links
I trust this assists.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Hands | Public Access Manager
Joint Information Management Unit | Hampshire Constabulary & Thames Valley
Police
Telephone +44(0)1865 846 329 | Internal | 700-6033
Address Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Oxford Road, Kidlington,
Oxfordshire, OX5 2NX
References
Visible links
1. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/
2. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/faq
3. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/resources-and-links
Dear Public Access,
Thanks for getting back to me on this issue. I do apologise for the wording of the previous request. I thought that a "Brief overview" would have helped to reduce the amount of work for yourselves on this one. Can I recude my request down to the following, please:
1) would the All face to face meetings \ letters \ email, etc with MI5 be released to the National Archives under the 20 year rule?
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Mantle
Dear Mr Mantle
Under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 legislation,
Thames Valley Police are obliged to disclose recorded information and not
necessarily answer questions or confirm/deny statements. Under Section 8,
this question is not deemed to be a request under the provisions of the
Act. However, we can confirm that Thames Valley Police information is not
sent to the National Archives. I trust this assists.
Yours sincerely
Jonathan Hands | Public Access Manager
Joint Information Management Unit | Hampshire Constabulary & Thames Valley
Police
Telephone +44(0)1865 846 329 | Internal | 700-6033
Address Thames Valley Police Headquarters, Oxford Road, Kidlington,
Oxfordshire, OX5 2NX
From: Jonathan Mantle [[FOI #332544 email]]
Sent: 10 May 2016 08:07
To: Public Access
Subject: Re: HQ/PA/1462/16
Dear Public Access,
Thanks for getting back to me on this issue. I do apologise for the
wording of the
previous request. I thought that a "Brief overview" would have helped to
reduce the
amount of work for yourselves on this one. Can I recude my request down
to the
following, please:
1) would the All face to face meetings \ letters \ email, etc with MI5 be
released to the
National Archives under the 20 year rule?
Yours sincerely,
Jonathan Mantle
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Hoppy Napoli left an annotation ()
Usually MI5, or more properly the Security Services, and other shadowy organisations interact with Special Branch - the only part of a territorial police force that applicants can not apply to join. Instead they are carefully chosen after considerable vetting. Their ranks run from constable to inspector.
They do not really "inform". Instead it is a constant interaction between the two organisations passing information in both directions - usually intelligence to SS and requests to TVP. Both know what interests them, not only locally but nationally and sometimes internationally too. The same interaction happens with other organisations. They are like a big family and chat about items of mutual interest. There are frequent visits to TVP and TVP attend meetings and briefings elsewhere.
You won't get a better answer to your four questions from them.
1) What are the main issues would Thames Valley Police need to inform MI5 about?
Official Secret. Although mentioning public safety, public order, diplomatic, high level political matters would not be misleading. Essentially its anything TVP SB think might interest the SS. The success of the SS depends on keeping secrets and not revealing anything useful to the bad guys.
2) What is the average time that you contact MI5 about an issue upon discovering it
Depends entirely on what the matter is, varying from routine to urgent. Both services operate 24 hours a day on every day of the year and getting woken up in the middle of the night or attending something in the middle of the night is standard.
3) would the All face to face meetings \ letters \ email, etc be then relised to the National Archives under the 20 year rule
Definitely NOT. Material gets pulverised into dust particles. So hush-hush that only persons with the appropriate security clearance can get into the same room as the pulverising machine and that excludes 99.7% of all police.
4) What is the average response time for a representitve for MI5 attending the issue.
No average. Just depends on the particular matter. An SS person may not need to attend or someone from a different organisation might. Every happening is usually different, that's why SB is one of the most appealing police jobs imaginable.
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