Some explanation of the rather surprising statements on FoI made by Sir Edward Acton and his colleagues in their submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee has emerged. As noted in the previous post, Sir Edward said that no offence under the FoI had been established and that the evidence was prime facie in nature. Here is the exact quote for reference
On 22 January 2010, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) released a statement to a journalist, which was widely misinterpreted in the media as a finding by the ICO that UEA had breached Section 77 of the FOIA by withholding raw data. A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges.
Let's just say that's not quite the whole story. The following are excerpts from that letter of 29th January, from the ICO to UEA.
...the ICO has been alerted by the complainant and by information already in the public domain via the media, to a potential offence under section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act. The prima facie evidence from the published emails indicate an attempt to defeat disclosure by deleting information. It is hard to imagine more cogent prima facie evidence...In the event, the matter cannot be taken forward because of the statutory time limit.
To me it looks fairly clear that the ICO believes an offence to have been committed but the culprit has evaded justice because of the statute of limitations.
That's not quite the impression you get from the UEA submission is it?
And what about the statement that the information related to "private emails". I've read and reread the document. I've put it through OCR and searched the text. The word "private" does not appear in the document.
Oh dear.
I wonder who wrote the CRU sections of the submission, those sections that Sir Edward Acton has so carefully disassociated himself from?