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I think for many people their assessment of the respective positions in this stand-off between Baroness Hallett and the Cabinet Office will be determined by who they trust more: Hallett or the CO. And when it comes to evading requests for information and the release of documents, the Cabinet Office does not have a good record.

In 2018, Judge Hughes backed a legal challenge brought by the campaign group openDemocracy (and later supported by the Information Commissioner) against the Cabinet Office’s Clearing House unit. This unit – one that few knew existed - circulated details of requests for information made to a variety of government departments and advised them on ways in which they could avoid or at least delay responding to these requests. Judge Hughes decried the ‘toxic culture of secrecy and evasion’ in the Clearing House unit and there was condemnation of its activities from all sides of the political spectrum with the result that within a few years, it was closed down. A similar fate befell the Cabinet Office’s sinister named Rapid Response unit (RRU).

Questions have also been raised about how far the Cabinet office can be trusted to tell the truth. My own experience suggests not at all. In 2021, I was told that if I wanted to make a complaint about the Treasury Solicitor – she’s the head of the Government Legal Department – it had to be forwarded to the PHSO via my local MP, in my case, Theresa May. I duly sent my complaint letter to Mrs May. She later informed me she had been “confused” and sent my complaint beginning ‘Dear Parliamentary Commissioner [the PHSO] .. I wish to make a complaint about the Treasury Solicitor’… to the Cabinet Office. A Freedom of Information Request revealed a flurry of emails between the CO, the AGO as to whether they could legitimately send my letter of complaint to the GLD and the Treasury Solicitor. Eventually, it was agreed this was the right thing to do.

When my letter of complaint was sent to Susanna McGibbon, the Treasury Solicitor, she took on the role of the PHSO Ombudsman, summarily dismissed all my complaints and returned my letter with her rejection to Theresa May, saying it was ‘up to [her] whether she decided to forward my letter to the Ombudsman’. May returned my letter to me, I revised it and added to my list of complaints the fact that the TS had clearly attempted to pervert the course of justice. Eventually, Rob Behrens, the PHSO Ombudsman dismissed all my complaints and said that the Treasury Solicitor was simply trying to ‘be helpful’ in responding to my letter.

In response to another Freedom of Information Request in which I asked whether it was standard policy for the Cabinet Office to divert letters mistakenly sent to them which were addressed to the PHSO and began ‘I wish to make a complaint about the Treasury Solicitor’ to send it to the GLD, they affirmed their policy in such circumstances was to direct the letter to ‘the department to which its content, its subject matter, pertained’ – in my case, the GLD.

So would I trust the Cabinet Office to tell the truth? No.

Finally, there was the ICO’s fining the Cabinet Office £500,000 (the tax payer, of course, pays the fine) for their breach of data privacy rights: they published the postal addresses of the 2020 New Year’s Honours list online.

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And it was also prevent the Cabinet Office claiming later that they don’t have the material requested which if they did would be incontestably irrelevant. Waiting for the next article Joshua to explain this conundrum..And have a happy birthday too of course.

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Thanks. Interesting suggestion.

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One thing that could be done to improve Inquiry procedure is to adopt the Disclosure List model that exists under the Civil Procedure Rules - it allows the disclosing party to point out what they did search for, what they didn’t search for, and, using the three-part form of the List itself, they can point out (1) what they have available to disclose to the inquiry, (2) what they have but object to disclose to the inquiry because of privilege and (3) what they don’t have. It means that rather than fighting over everything at once, they could file such a List with the Chair, and then let the Inquiry object to the assertion of privilege over particular elements of evidence, whilst receiving other pieces of evidence that the Government (or any other party) is willing to disclose to the Inquiry

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