It's the day before a national postal strike.
The leader of the Communication Workers' Union writes to the Royal Mail, explaining why their stance leaves the union 'no alternative' but to go ahead with the strike. He says the Royal Mail should return to the negotiating table rather than 'feign ignorance of our constitutional procedures and make disparaging comments' about the union's executive.
Meanwhile the union leader has been the victim of what he denounces as a 'scurrilous article' in the capitalist press on the 'newsworthy theme of dissent within the Executive'. He says the piece in the Financial Times is 'journalistic mischief making'.
Not 2007. This is 1996, and the union leader in question is Alan Johnson, then General Secretary of the CWU, now Secretary of State of Health. According to the 'scurrilous' and 'mischief making' piece in the FT, Mr Johnson was actually opposed to the strike action which his union executive was insisting on.
These documents were obtained by the 91Èȱ¬ from the Royal Mail through a freedom of information request. Other documents released show how Royal Mail executives worried about the threat of competition which they felt would strikes would encourage.
As well as being day 1001 of freedom of information in the UK, today is also .
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has marked today by to release more information proactively about their work.
In this field the Commissioner's office does seem to live up to its own standards, on its website an impressive range of minutes of internal committee meetings.
For example, you can learn from the of a management meeting in June that ICO staff find there is a 'tangible difference in attitude between Northern Ireland public authorities and mainland UK ones, with the NI authorities being more co-operative'.
According to my calculations, today marks 1000 days of freedom of information in the UK. Those who prefer to measure such things in terms of working days will have to wait somewhat longer for this symbolic point to be reached.
The cost of policing last year's Labour conference in Manchester was around £4 million.
Following a freedom of information request from the 91Èȱ¬, Greater Manchester Police has revealed that it spent £3,983,300 on covering the event. The force adds that these costs are funded from a 91Èȱ¬ Office special grant.
As for this year's conference, Gordon Brown made one reference to freedom of information in his yesterday, in this passage:
"I have no doubt that the best answer to disengagement from our democracy is to renew our democracy. And that means more change ... change to strengthen our liberties to uphold the freedom of speech, freedom of information and the freedom to protest."
It's now the three-month deadline after the on FOI changes closed, and this is what the Ministry of Justice is saying this morning: 'The Government is still considering next steps on the fees regulations and will make an announcement in due course.'
Perhaps it will have to wait in line with the new Brownite policy of making announcements to Parliament first?
The postponement of Prince Charles's wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in April 2005 cost the Metropolitan Police over £50,000.
That figure has just been revealed to the 91Èȱ¬, over two years after a freedom of information request for it.
The wedding of Charles and Camilla was by one day so that Charles could attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. The Met Police has now told the 91Èȱ¬ that this decision cost them £52,266, including overtime and leave cancellation expenditure.
The Met initially refused to reveal financial information about the postponement. But they conceded after the 91Èȱ¬ complained to the Information Commissioner's Office. The 91Èȱ¬ first asked for details of the cost in April 2005, and complained to the ICO in December 2005.
The Met has compromised without a formal decision from the ICO. One can only assume that their discussions with the Information Commissioner's staff as the latter - eventually - investigated the complaint had finally made it clear to the Police that their refusal would not be upheld.
So the wedding was postponed by one day, the release of information about it by 29 months. Both happened eventually.
I'd been wondering what was happening with the , a mySociety project which aims to facilitate the making of FOI requests and the publication of responses.
According to on Friday, it's still under construction.
The way it works may have to take account of what changes, if any, ministers decide to implement on how FOI operates. We are still waiting to hear what they will do following their which ended on June 21. Assuming they stick to the government target of responding to a consultation within three months, we should hear something on this from the Ministry of Justice by Friday.
It's always interesting to see public authorities start putting in freedom of information requests themselves.
Castle Morpeth Council in Northumberland is to the Department of Communities and Local Government. This follows the department's decision to create a new unitary authority for the entire county, in conflict with Castle Morpeth's wishes. Councillors in Castle Morpeth want to know more about how and why the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears reached this decision.
It's one way for public bodies to convert freedom of information from being a problem into an opportunity.
The decision by Portuguese police to make Kate and Gerry McCann formal suspects in the disappearance of Madeleine may throw attention onto the process of 'low copy number' DNA testing.
Low copy number (LCN) testing is a sensitive, time-consuming form of DNA profiling which can be used on very small quantities of DNA. It has been reported that it was this technique which was used by the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham to examine DNA samples from the car hired by the McCanns.
However the history of the Forensic Science Service and its use of low copy number testing is .
The 91Èȱ¬ has been trying since February under freedom of information to obtain a copy of an FSS report into cases where criminals may have escaped prosecution because the service apparently failed to use LCN tests properly. We have also been seeking other general assessments held by the FSS or the Police of low copy number profiling.
However the Forensic Science Service has refused to give us the information. We are now appealing the case to the Information Commissioner.
is drawing attention to a recent and very significant from the Information Tribunal.
It concerns an information request made by to the Export Credits Guarantee Department in 2005. They wanted copies of communciations between the ECGD and other government departments relating to a huge oil and gas near the Russian island of Sakhalin, which amongst other things could affect the feeding areas for an endangered category of whales.
The Tribunal ruled that the material should be released, arguing that the candour of such documents written in 2003 would not have been harmed by disclosure in 2005. It is another example of a case where the Tribunal has overruled the Commissioner, who supported ECGD's refual to provide the information.
The ECGD has still not taken a final decision on whether to approve the project. According to the CFOI, this is the first time the Tribunal has decided that policy advice should be disclosed when a government decision is still pending rather than historical.
• On 9 March 2005 I made a freedom of information request to what was then called the Department for Education and Skills. Let's call this R-day.
• On 28 June 2005 (R+111) I was allowed to visit the DfES to read some of the documents in question.
• On 30 June 2005 (R+113) I requested an internal review in relation to the material I hadn't been allowed to see.
• On 26 July 2005 (R+139) the DfES rejected my internal review.
• On 31 July 2005 (R+144) I complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• On 12 September 2006 (R+552) the Commissioner's staff began to investigate the complaint (yes, over a year later).
• On 23 January 2007 (R+685) I received a second batch of documents which, following the intervention of the ICO, the DfES now decided to give me, while continuing to withhold other material.
• On 22 May 2007 (R+804) the ICO issued a instructing the DfES to send me further documents (although not everything I had asked for).
• On 19 June 2007 (R+832) the DfES announced it would appeal against this ICO decision to the Information Tribunal.
• On 1 Septmber 2007 (R+906), four days before the Tribunal was due to hold a preliminary hearing on the case, I received a letter from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as it now is, telling me they had decided to drop the appeal and enclosing the material which the ICO had told them to release. The request has now finally been dealt with.
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