Roles of Government Departments Involved in the Production of Studies on the Impact of Brexit

Dear Department for Exiting the European Union,

I refer to my former FoI request: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...
And your response: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...

In your response to Item 5a, you say: “We can confirm that DExEU does not hold this information. This exercise relied on expertise and involvement from across Government, and we are as such unable to ascertain the effort in days that went into producing these studies.”

I accept your response – that you do not hold the requested information. However, I now have the following further questions (numbering continued from my original FoI request for clarity):

9 Which government department(s) took on the following roles in producing the studies (if different departments acted in different roles for different studies, please specify all departments which took on each role):
a. Programme sponsor.
b. Scoping the programme – ie deciding which areas of the economy should be addressed.
c. Scoping of the individual studies.
d. Programme management – including tasking of the authors, planning, monitoring, and resource allocation.
e. Quality review – ensuring that the delivered studies were authoritative and fit for purpose.
f. Budgetary oversight of the programme.

10 While I accept your response (to item 5a), that this was a pan-government exercise and therefore you do not hold information relating to the total effort expended on each study, I believe that you must have information relating to the effort expended within DExEU. As you are presently unwilling to identify the individual studies, please let me have the total of the effort expended within DExEU on all of the studies. Please also specify the maximum and minimum amount of effort devoted to any individual study (within DExEU). I will make separate FoI requests of other departments for the equivalent information.

11 If, by the time you process this request, you have published the identity/titles of the individual studies, please also provide the total of the effort expended within DExEU on each of the studies.

I look forward to your response in due course.

Yours faithfully,

Shaun Davey

Dear DEXEU Freedom of Information Team Mailbox,

Thank you for your response to my FoI request which is much appreciated.

Given your response to my question 9, you seem to be saying that there is no formal programme of work (in the PRINCE2 sense) associated with the production of the studies, but rather this was an informal cooperative exercise conducted across multiple government departments. If so, this seems to be at odds with what other departments are telling me in responses to FoI requests I have put to them, to which their typical response is "This work is being coordinated across Government by the Department for Exiting the EU." Thus, their responses imply coordination by DExEU, which of itself implies a formal programme of work associated with the production of the studies. If such a programme exists, I believe that you can make a better attempt to answer my question 9.

Perhaps you would be good enough to clarify this one point, such that we can close my FoI request.

Many thanks,

Shaun Davey