Varieties of FOIA response

See also the page about specific tactics used…

Free and Frank and Fearless

A warts and all “we have nothing to hide because we are aware that we are not perfect and we welcome scrutiny because it will make us more effective”.  

To meet this the criteria are as follows

  1. Within the 20 days

AND

  1. All questions answered with no specifics dodged

May also even include unusually comprehensive answers that point to previously unknown sources of information

Frequency – up there with rocking horse poo.

(Only gong to happen if a senior civil servant has gone rogue/won a Euromillions rollover and has no fucks left to give)

Spin City

The usual bluster and top spin on what should be a straightforward yes/no, here is the information.

Withhold, evade, give disingenuous/incomplete answers to most questions

To meet this the criteria are as follows

  1. Within the 20 days

AND

  1. Under half of the questions answered, with information withheld on spurious grounds, and incomplete/misleading answers on the majority (pufferfish, distraction etc)

Frequency – up there with rocking horse poo.

“A weasel would be ashamed”

Mostly evasion and answering similar but different questions, or trying to flood the zone with bullshit.

The criteria: 

  1. Late

OR

  1. Over half of the answers are disingenuous, evasive, incomplete, attempting to bluster and distract.

Frequency – the usual sort of response you get, no matter how carefully you word your FOIAs to avoid wiggle room.

You know this isn’t East Germany, right?

A display of hubris, arrogance and secrecy that is unusual only in being blatant, rather than implicit.

The criteria

  1. Delivered late/after nudging

AND

  1. More than 60% evasive “non-reply responses” that provide information that was not asked for in an attempt to distract.  Hides behinds attempts at confidentiality, privacy etc, hoping the person asking will give up before asking for an internal review or going to the ICO.

Frequency – unusual, because it simply invites an internal review/ICO.  They usually pay some sorta lipservice to “transparency”, even if that is in itself transparent.