People also have seemed to have overlooked that there is an offence in the 
FOI legislation which will make it an offence to alter, erase, block, conceal 
records whith the intention of preventing access following a request for 
access. The offence applies to "any person". The request is either an FOI 
request or under S7 of the DPA. 

The scenario painted by Maurice ("There have been cases of people who have 
been shown their file informally,  and when they later apply for them 
*formally* discover that papers that they know exist have not been handed") 
can therefore move into this area very easily


Chris.

I only have the orignial FOI Bill (19th November 1999) to hand and in this 
edition the offence is in Clause 75. I am also assuming that the FOI 
legislation will be enacted.



-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] 
Sent: 14 September 2000 18:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: what is reasonable


People very often suspect that authorities destroy (or temporarily hide) 
'incriminating' documents from their files, before giving access. We get a 
lot of requests for advice from people who fear this.

Many are based on unfounded suspicion, but not all.  There have been cases of 
people who have been shown their file informally,  and when they later apply 
for them *formally* discover that papers that they know exist have not been 
handed over.


I suspect something of this kind is behind the request to be present when the 
file is being photocopied. If this person has made a series of complaints, 
she may well fear that the authority will conceal any evidence that supports 
her complaint.

This may be misguided, but it is probably a genuine fear -  rather than  a 
sign of a 'mischievous, vexatious or frivolous' request.

Maurice Frankel
Campaign for Freedom of Information




At 11:41 am +0100 14/9/00, Paul Simpkins wrote:
>One of my Council's tenants was given access to her house file (material
>relating to her tenancy mostly on paper)  four months ago and took some
>photocopies. She has just written back and asked for a photocopy of the
>whole file. She has also asked to inspect it again before/whilst it is being
>done.
>
>Is this a reasonable request? Has a reasonable period of time elapsed since
>her last access? Is this mischievous, vexatious or frivolous? There have
>been no significant additions to the file since the last access except for
>letters she has written to us. Should we allow this access which will take
>up considerable officer time and resources or can we turn her down. This
>tenant has made a significant number of complaints to many council
>departments on a broad range of issues.
>
>
>Data Protection Compliance Officer
>City of Bradford MDC
>01274-753500
>[log in to unmask]



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