Dear Department for Exiting the European Union,

It has been widely reported in the press that your department holds over fifty studies on the impact of Brexit on the UK economy. For example: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...
This is in line with earlier statements: for instance in a FoI response to G Simmons dated 11 November 2016, you confirmed that “As the Secretary of State has said in the House of Commons, we are undertaking an assessment of the impact of exit on over fifty sectors of the economy”.

I now request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act, which I believe is held by your department:

1. Please confirm the existence of the studies referenced above.

2. Please confirm the precise number of studies.

3. Please provide a list of the titles of the studies and/or a list of the sectors of the economy covered by the studies.

4. For each of the studies please provide the date of its commissioning, the date of its original (non-draft) issue and of its date of last update. If the study remains in a ‘draft’ state, please provide the date of last update and the expected (non-draft) issue date.

5. For each of the studies:
a. Where the study was produced within the department by civil servants or directly-supervised government contractors, please provide the number of person-days of effort which was devoted to its production.
b. Where the study was produced by an external contractor(s), please identify the external contractor(s) and quantify the external spend in producing the study. Please specify also specify the government contracting route(s) under which the work was procured. With reference to the spend figures, an approximate response will suffice, thereby protecting commercially sensitive information.

6. For each of the studies, please confirm the number of pages (printed sides of A4) in the final document(s).

7. Please confirm whether or not the studies are being updated as the course of Brexit becomes clearer, or whether these are now static documents.

8. Please provide a copy of any generic brief which was provided to the authors of the studies in tasking them. For instance any document giving details of the required scope, assumptions to be made, Brexit scenarios to be considered and form/format of response etc.

If you are unable to respond to any of my questions above, I would be grateful if you would still respond to the others to the maximum extent possible.

Many thanks for your help - I look forward to your response in due course.

Yours faithfully,

Shaun Davey

Dear Department for Exiting the European Union,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Exiting the European Union's handling of my FOI request 'Studies on the Impact of Brexit'.

I have the following concerns regarding your response:

Item 1: Accepted, thank you.

Items 2 and 3: You have claimed a section 22 exemption for the information that I have requested as you ‘intend to publish’ that information. I would point out that the two written parliamentary questions that you cite were dated 21/6/17 and 10/7/17, and both used the word ‘shortly’ in describing the timing of the planned publication of the information. I suggest that, by any reasonable interpretation of the word, the period described by ‘shortly’ has already past. In the circumstances, I ask that you review whether the use of a section 22 exemption is appropriate, and whether the text of the parliamentary answers was misleading to the Rt Hon Tracy Brabin MP. Alternatively, you could just publish the information on your web site, as you say you intend to do.

Items 4 and 6: You have claimed a section 27(1)(a-d) exemption for the information that I have requested. Just to remind you, the information requested is (4) dates associated with each of the studies – for its commissioning and release etc, and (6) the extent of each study, in terms of the number of pages it occupies when printed on A4 paper. I ask you to review how any of these pieces of information could possibly prejudice any of the matters cited in 27(1)(a-d). I believe that, by no stretch of the imagination, could this information prejudice the UK in any way whatsoever, and that the purported reasons for your withholding the information are therefore invalid.

Item 5a: Accepted in part – thank you. Please can you tell me which government departments were involved in this exercise and which took on the role of programme management in the production of the studies. I am happy to make a further FoI request(s) as appropriate.

Item 5b: Accepted. Thank you.
Item 7: Accepted. Thank you.
Item 8: Accepted. Thank you.

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

Yours faithfully,

Shaun Davey

Dear DEXEU Freedom of Information Team Mailbox,

This coming Friday (24/11) you will have had 40 working days to respond to this internal review request - ample time by anyone's standards.

Please respond. I will complain to the ICO if I do not hear from you by next week.

Yours sincerely,

Shaun Davey