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The Times on Saturday reported the alleged instruction to delete all e-mails over 3 months old.

There was no mention (understandably for a newspaper!) of the fact that this might contradict existing retention policies.

 

For the benefit of those on the list that don’t work for public authorities/Civil Service, can somebody “on the inside” comment on this story.

For example, what ACTUALLY was requested to be deleted? How does this request sit alongside current retention schedules?

 

Thought this might make an interesting pre-Christmas discussion!!

 

Best regards,

Eldin.

 

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http://www.rammell.com

 

Link to article:

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-1407627,00.html

               

Purge of e-mails will deny the right to know
By Sam Coates and Jill Sherman

 

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MILLIONS of e-mails to civil servants at the heart of government will be automatically wiped on Monday, 11 days before freedom of information laws come into force.

The Cabinet Office, which supports the Prime Minister and co-ordinates policy across government, has ruled that e-mails more than three months old must be deleted from December 20, The Times has learnt.

Its 2,000 civil servants are being told to print and file e-mails that should be disclosed under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act.

It will be up to the individual which e-mails are printed, with no monitoring from heads of department. Many officials, who receive about 100 e-mails a day, will have at least 3,000 items in their mailboxes. These include officials in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, the Delivery Unit, and the offices of Alan Milburn and Sir Andrew Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary.

Although the deleted e-mails will be stored on back-up systems, these have been declared off limits to freedom of information requests because of the cost of accessing them.

Last night, Phil Boyd, the assistant information commmissioner, who will enforce FoI requests, said that the decision could be a big risk and that important files could be lost.

Constitutional experts called the introduction of an “opt-in” system, where civil servants are proactive in preserving information, a blatant contradiction of the Act’s “presumption of disclosure”.