Freedom of Information

[goffer hopper]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the flying world, are you prepared for the inbound Freedom of Information(FOI) act thats hitting the MOD in January. Ask yourself what it means to you..... It means that anyone anywhere can hand you a written question, or e mail one to you, and you are obliged to pass it on to the correct authority for consideration.... Not a problem I hear you say! well it will bite when someone asks to see your personal inbox or tray, and you are obliged by law to pass it on without knowingly deleting or changing any information,(consequences being £5000 fine + prison). The MOD will withhold info about special forces and national security matters, aswell as any personal info, but they must decide what constitutes that! They do not recognise security caveats and the person requesting the info does not have to justify their request!It is going to be policy to release the information rather than withhold it. This also includes any third party country information we may have stored.

HOW SAFE IS YOUR INFORMATION. MAY BE TIME FOR AN EARLY SPRING CLEAN!

Does this worry anyone else or is it just me? I'm all for being seen to account for our business, but aren't there some things the public should have no right to see?

[L J R]

If you have stuff in your out tray / in-box that will embarrass you, You are stuck in the '60s.

SURELY YOU SAW THIS COMING.


If you did not, you are stuck in the '70s....

[goffer hopper]

while i agree with you, i use the in tray as an example.The wider problem could eventually lead to a question about your own or units personal security, or any part of military business. This is, lets face it, War! surely i'm not alone in seeing the problems of disclosing our information freely in the public domain.

Fair point about the in box though, i'll have to clear out all those things the fun police are constantly chasing me for!

[Anita Bush]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=148218&highlight=information

Covered already chaps

[mbga9pgf]

What concerns me is the fact that one snippet of information in itself may not amount to much, but what happens when it is combined with other similar snippets? You disclose something you originally did not intend to. We honestly cannot keep track of all FOI requests and the subsequent released information, so why are we, as the armed forces, part of this initiated "lets go transparent" lefty madness?

If some civvy wants to know something I suggest they join the military or mind their own bloody business. And if they dont trust the word of our democratically elected government, then I say tough again. I suggest they go and live somewhere like North Korea or Syria.

[The Gorilla]

Ahh another one of those stuffy I am far to important to be accountable to those who pay my wages!

Have you ever had a staff tour in the MOD? No? Well you are most suitable for the position my friend!!

And who in this country trusts the words of our Tonys lot eh?

Some of you lot can be so ruddy arrogant!!

It's coming in and if you don't like it cough up the 5 grand fine!!

:mad:

[Melchett01]

Ah yes , the FOI. A little bit like the League of Nations. A very good idea, marred by the fact that it's complete bollocks.

We have a very bad asbestos problem at our place. If you know what I mean.

What I really want to know is this: how do you deal with answers to questions posed by Mr Chav, 69 Chave Towers, Essex, that are blatantly classified, do you get done under the Official Secrets Act??? After all, there is no get out clause for classified material.

Personally, I take the view that Mr Chav will have to prize the stuff out of my cold dead hands and I will willingly take it up the hoop if it comes to national security and not sending classified material to Chav Towers. Or rather I will send it up the food chain for someone who gets paid more than me to take it up the hoop.

Does the FOI Act differentiate between a right to know and a NEED to know????? I suspect not.

[teeteringhead]

I was working in MoD Whitehall when the first stirrings of FOI were beginning. Information about the way ahead on the proposed FOI Act was leaked to the press.....

..... and there was an enormous witch hunt to find the culprits.... think about it...;)

Sir Humphrey would have been proud....

[Red Line Entry]

"After all, there is no get out clause for classified material."

In fact Melchett, Section 26 of the Act sets out an exemption if the disclosure of information would or would be likely to prejudice:

the defence of the British Islands or any colony (shades of old!)

the capability, effectiveness or security of the armed forces or that of any forces operating with them.

So let's not all get too anal about this eh? In a democratic society, the people have a right to know what we do and, as far as is reasonable, how we do it. We're not in the courtroom scene of "A Few Good Men" here.

[Mikehegland]

Exactly, well said red line entry.

If you guys would take the time to read the FOI you will notice that the amount of information we are obliged to disclose is very limited AND extremely boring.

[StopStart]

What is much more important is the fabulously useless filing and file naming system they've come up with to deal with it.
I'll just save everything I need to floppy and then eat it when the feds raid us looking for incorrectly named Word documents.... :rolleyes:

[Pontius Navigator]

Mikehegland I am not sure you are correct. I will be better able to judge after I do the course next week. From the briefings for far the only get out of jail cards are held by SF not by the rest of us mere mortals.

As far as boring I am with you. As far as snippets leading to a big picture, read Peter Hennessy Secret War. He makes as much out of what is not released as what is.

As far as it being clear, lively and informative, if what comes out of the FOI office now is anything to go by, 'covered in asbestos' is a model of disclosure and clarity.

[Melchett01]

the people have a right to know what we do and, as far as is reasonable, how we do it

Hmmm me thinks not. But on the other hand, if Joe Bloggs wants to go and get a security clearance, then that might be a different matter.

Unlike GCHQ and MI6, the MOD does not have a blanket ban on disclosing material which means that anybody, anywhere in the world can ring up Sir Humphrey Dogooder and ask specific questions about what 69 Sqn were doing in Umbongobongoville between 23-30 Aug 1994.

Unfrotunately, Sir Humphrey Dogooder is then obliged to pass that request on to the relevant people for answering, without any clarification of exactly who is asking and why they want to know. So in theory, and if you apply the letter of the law, UBL is entitled to ask questions about what we've been upto in his crappy part of the world.

There is a massive difference between the need to know and the right to know, and that difference is called opsec - and I refer the right honourable gentleman to the huge fuss that kicked off on the recent Nimrod thread, and that was talking about kit from before I was a glint in the milkman's eye as a good example.

And with the ever increasing numbers of coalition ops that we are part of, the US and other allies may start to get a little concerned if we start answering questions here and there about what has been going on. It only takes a few people to ask the right questions in isolation. put the answers together and you've got yourself a potential breach of security or threat to troops on the ground.

If anything, the FOI will only encourage people to be the exact opposite of more open and clear about what we do.

[MadsDad]

I don't think it is unreasonable to be allowed to gain general information about what public money is being spent on. If the trip to Umbongobongoville had security implications then it is quite easy to deny the information on those grounds. On the other hand if it was merely a convenient method of conveying the Vice Air-Marshal for Pigeon Procurement to his daughters engagement party to the Deputy-President then it deserves to be brought to public attention.

There are plenty of exemptions to the act ranging from security to cost (see here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/story/0,,1373016,00.html) for a more lucid explanation.

[Pontius Navigator]

Melchett, you are right. The key is the public interest test and this can be applied world-wide.

It might be of no interest in UK what we did overseas but the opposition (Terrs) there might find it very useful.

At least I know where I stand.

"I know nuffing" I will simply pass the sh*tty stick up the line.

[BEagle]

But will there be anything left to read? It seems that document shredding is being stepped up dramatically at the MoD. From the BBC:

Whitehall 'shredding more files'

Government departments say they are following rules on public records

Civil servants have drastically stepped up the shredding of official documents, figures compiled by the Tories suggest.

Some government departments had doubled the number of documents being shredded ahead of the Freedom of Information Act's implementation on 1 January.

Departments for defence, environment and trade, which had all increased file destruction, said they were following rules governing public records.

But the Tories want the information commissioner to investigate.

The Freedom of Information Act will for the first time give members of the public access to government records previously kept secret for 30 years.

But BBC Political Correspondent James Hardy said the prospect of outsiders poking their noses into the inner workings of Whitehall appeared to be causing jitters among the mandarins.

From a series of parliamentary answers Dr Julian Lewis, the Conservative spokesman for the Cabinet Office, says he has discovered a huge acceleration in shredding.

The Department of Work and Pensions destroyed nearly 37,000 files last year - up 22,000 on four years ago when the Act was passed.

The number of files destroyed by the Ministry of Defence and the departments of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Trade and Industry has also risen dramatically.

Dr Lewis has called for an investigation by the information commissioner Richard Thomas.

Earlier this week, Mr Thomas said he was looking into Cabinet Office orders telling staff to delete e-mails more than three months old.

He said he "totally condemned" the deletion of e-mails to prevent their disclosure under freedom of information laws coming into force on 1 January.

Government guidance said e-mails should only be deleted if they served "no current purpose", Mr Thomas said.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said the move was not about the new laws or "the destruction of important records".


The Freedom of Information Act will cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland from next year. Similar measures are being brought in at the same time in Scotland.

It provides the public with a right of access to information held by about 100,000 public bodies, subject to various exemptions.

Your right to know:

THE NEW ACT
The public authority must say if it has information requested
If it does, applicants have the right to be told that information
All requests must be in writing
Authority must respond within 20 working days
Authorities have right to charge for providing information

[814man]

Having been involved in some of the preparation and planning for the introduction of FoI can I just add a few additional comments to the above notes from BEagle.

The public authority must say if it has information requested
Agree

If it does, applicants have the right to be told that information
Unless an exemption applies, in which case you must be told which exemption is being relied upon to refuse your request.

All requests must be in writing
E-mail is acceptable.

Authority must respond within 20 working days
Yes

Authorities have right to charge for providing information
Only if the cost of providing the information will be above £450. It is anticipated that most requests will not attract a fee and the legal guidance specifically states that any fee must not be in place to put off requestors.

Finally similar legislation to this was enacted in the Republic of Ireland a few years ago and once it settled down studies found that some 60% of requests for information came from staff within an organisation. Whilst I’m not suggesting that we all use this as a tool to get answers to those difficult questions from Handbrake House, there is always that option. Remember you do not need to say why you want a particular piece of information or give any justification for requesting it.

[LoeyDaFrog]

I posted a thought on the very same subject a few weeks ago, but it seems relevant still. Where does one stand with regards to that little piece of paper I signed marked 'Official Secrets Act' or does no-one care anymore after Katherine Whatsername spilled the beans over the war.
Personally, whether something is classified or not, the good old fashioned 'need to know' principle still applies! Does that person - need to know - the information. Depsite being allowed to see things in my day-to-day job, I accept that sometimes I'm not party to things as I, do not need to know.
Oh, and thankfully, not being OC GD or any other scribbly type, at least I won't have to deal with any request that comes in, except to pass it onto 'the relevant authorities'