Videos and Productions relating to N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into loss of Trident

Department for Transport did not have the information requested.

Dear Department for Transport,

I wish to make the following request under the" FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT"

I request all Videos and Productions relating to the" N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into loss of TRIDENT Report"

This is my 4th request and to date I have not received an acknowledgement from the Department for Transport.

Yours faithfully,

Mrs Jeannie Ritchie

FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT, Department for Transport

Dear Mrs Ritchie

I am sorry that you did not receive an acknowledgment of your recent information request. Your request was first received in the Department on 7 March and you will receive a response within 20 working days of that date, i.e., by 4 April.

Yours sincerely

FOI Advice Team
Department for Transport

show quoted sections

FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT, Department for Transport

2 Attachments

Dear Mrs Ritchie

Please find attached a copy of the response to the request below. This response was sent direct to your own e-mail address yesterday.

Yours sincerely

FOI Advice Team
Department for Transport

show quoted sections

Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,

With regards to your reply to my Freedom of Information request.

May I, Department for Transport repeat the same request to you again as you are not giving me an answer to what I have requested from you.

"May I please have all the Videos and Productions relating to the N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into Loss of Trident Report".

I am aware, Department for Transport that there was Videos taken and there was Productions in the "N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into Loss of Trident Report".

Please note again what my request WAS under the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs J Ritchie

Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,

Attn Nick Court
Shipping Policy
Department for Transport.

With regards to your reply to my Freedom of Information Act request which I received on the 5th April 2011

Your response is not answering what I have asked you for a few times

May I Department for Transport repeat the same request to you again.

May I please have all

" The Videos and Productions relating to .N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into loss of Trident"
This I requested on the 14th April 2011 also..

Sir, I wish to point out the following regarding your reply to my request

The
Capsizing of Small Trawlers.

1979 The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
by
A.,Morrall (member)

This is an Academic Paper.
We have been aware of this paper since 2009.

You Quote

'Under Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 the Department for Transport is not required to provide information that is already reasonably accessible to you.

My response

We the families of Trident have never seen the VIDEOS and PRODUCTIONS relating to the PART of an INQUIRY INTO THE LOSS OF TRIDENT.
You are very well aware that this N.M.I Part of an Inquiry Into Loss of Trident dated 22nd October 1976 was KEEP HIDDEN from us the families since 1976.

We are aware that videos and productions were" Part of the Inquiry into the Loss of Trident"
We ask you for them again.

You Quote also

Sir Stephen Young stated that
The N.M.I Report dated 22 Oct 1976 was the subject of only brief passing references during the Inquiry.

My response

I do not know if you have Legal or Marine expertise to make your comments.
May I suggest that you read the N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into the Loss of Trident
It shows very clearly the results on the model tests make on Trident in 1976 and leaves no doubt to WHAT caused its LOSS

How the Sheriff Principal gave it only as you quote ',brief passing references during the Inquiry "only him can answer that!!!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs J Ritchie

Jim Spooner, Department for Transport

1 Attachment

Dear Mrs Ritchie,

Please see attached response to your FOI request dated 14 April.

Jim Spooner

Pollution Prevention

Great Minster House

76 Marsham Street

London SW1P 4DR

Tel: 0207 944 5417

show quoted sections

Mrs J Ritchie

Dear Jim Spooner,

May I respond to your letter of the 17th May 2011 which is your response to my Freedom of Information Act 2000 in which I have asked you many times for:

"Videos and Productions relating to the N.M.I. Part of an Inquiry into the Loss of Trident."

Sir, in your response you tell me that The Department for Transport does not have Productions neither Videos and ask me to point you to,tell you why I think they exist.

As you are aware the N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into Loss of Trident was keep from the Families of the 7
men who died on Trident and the general public for 34 Years.
This N.M.I. was conducted as you will know for The Board of Trade/Department for Transport.

The N.M.I. Part of an Inquiry into the Loss of Trident was Dated 22nd October 1976 and we the Families only found out of the existance of it on the 20th May 2010 even though it was a Court Productions in the RFI since 2004.
The N.M.I Report was never discussed /produced in court until we the families brought it to the attention of the Sheriff Principal on day 41 in the RFI

I wish to repeat the request again under The Freedom of Information Act 2000.

May I please have the Productions and Videos,Films relating to N.M.I. Part of an Inquiry into loss of TRIDENT PD 111

Mr Spooner ,if you please look at The N.M.I Report ,Page 5, no 7 it states;

Model Seakeeping Experiments

"The bulk of the data collected was entirely visual and to support these,cine films were taken of most of the experiments"

Mr Spooner to confirm this to you again,please refer to

1979 Paper written by A.Morrall
"Capsizing of Small Trawlers"
Page 74 ,no 6
Model Sea keeping Experiments
Quote
"The majority of the Data collected from the experiments was visual,supported by cine films."

Page 76,Left hand side.
Quote
These types of capsize were filmed and several frames have been reproducted in Figs 10 and 11.

Page 78 ,Fig 10
Model A Capsizing with no water on deck ie Trident.

I hope that leads you to the Productons and Videos /Films which I have been requesting from the Department for Transport.

Thanking you and await receipt of my request.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs J Ritchie

Dear Department for Transport,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Department for Transport's handling of my FOI request 'Videos and Productions relating to N.M.I Part of an Inquiry into loss of Trident'.

It has now been more than five weeks since I provided additional information to help in your search for the films of the NMI testing that I requested and I have still have not received an acknowledgment nor an answer . As this report was reviewed by experts I would have presumed that the film footage would also have been considered as it is clearly cited within the report.
This request is long overdue and as such I wish to request an internal review

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

Yours faithfully,

Mrs J Ritchie

FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT, Department for Transport

1 Attachment

Dear Mrs Ritchie

Thank you for your e-mail in which you state that you have not received a response to the information request which you originally made to the Department for Transport on 6 June.

Section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) states that "a public authority must comply with section 1(1) [that is, must provide a substantive response to an information request] promptly and in any event not later than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt". The twentieth working day following the date of receipt of your request was 4 July.

In this case, it appears that a response to your request was sent on 4 July, but that it was not sent to the correct e-mail address. The response should have been communicated to you at the e-mail address through which you made your request (unless you had specified an alternative means of communication). However, in this case the response was sent to another e-mail address which we have for you. Moreover, that e-mail address was mis-typed, so you will not have received the response dated 4 July.

Please accept our apologies for this error and for the fact that the response was not communicated to you at the correct address within the deadline.

A copy of the substantive response to your request is attached.

Yours sincerely

FOI Advice Team
Department for Transport

show quoted sections

daniela drysdale left an annotation ()

Dear Mr Court,

In your response to Mrs Ritchie you have advised:

"I am afraid that the Department does not have any copies of the cine films mentioned in the NMI report or the 1979 paper; nor is the Department aware of the existence of any copies of the films."

Perhaps the Department would be good enough to expand on this and advise Mrs Ritchie whether they have raised this matter formally with BMT, the company formed through the merger of the British Ship Research Association (BSRA) and the National Maritime Institute (NMI) and who still hold extensive archive material from the 60s, 70s and eighties.

BMT has many past and current links with the DfT and, unless they have been specifically requested by the Department to shred this data, it is most likely that they would still hold copies of the information that Mrs Ritchie seeks.

Regards,

Daniela Drysdale

Dear FOI-ADVICE-TEAM-DFT,
Could the Department clarify if they have indeed checked with BMT as a possible source for the requested information. In addition I would like to make an observation it was my understanding that the experts engaged in the RFI had considered the NMI report how could they have done this in its entirety without the accompanying films ?

Yours sincerely,

Mrs J Ritchie

daniela drysdale left an annotation ()

Blog post related to this request:

http://the-trawler-gaul.blogspot.com/201...

Wonett Hall, Department for Transport

1 Attachment

Dear Mrs Ritchie,

Please see attached response to your e-mail dated 29 July 2011 requesting
information relating the Trident RFI.

Yours sincerely,

Wonett Hall

Wonett Hall

Department for Transport

Zone 2/31, Great Minster House

76 Marsham Street

London

SW1P 4DR

show quoted sections

daniela drysdale left an annotation ()

What the Department's response actually states is that:

i) they have not 'officially' asked BMT whether they still hold copies of the Trident NMI test videos

and that

ii) they have no intention of asking them this question in the future.

The Department is, of course, not required, under the terms of the FOI Act, to check with autonomous third parties such as BMT when responding to an FOI request.

But we would expect that our government, in the guise of the DfT, was able to show a minimum degree of courtesy and compassion towards the widows and families of the Trident victims

All they would need to do is pick up the phone, contact BMT and find out the answer to a simple and straightforward question.

However if they were to ask BMT that simple question, they might find themselves in the situation where they could no longer state "We do not know of anyone that does hold a copy" - which would never do!

The DfT have already 'destroyed' this information once, and the last thing they would wish for is for it to pop up uninvited from another source!

daniela drysdale left an annotation ()

Mr Court,

In your letter to Mrs Ritchie you state:

"it would appear that the NMI report was a stand-alone report, which did not rely on the film itself, the only relevant bits being the the frames reproduced in the report[...] The department believes this indicates that the authors of the report considered these frames to be sufficient."

This is not actually correct, when the outcome of the research was presented to RINA in 1979/80, the author felt obliged to supplement his report with a video presentation of the Trident NMI tests.

This issue is explained in more detail at: http://the-trawler-gaul.blogspot.com/201...