Opaque Government

Dear Mr Scott,

Thank you for your e-mail of 15 February 2006 in which you ask for all correspondence, internal and external, pertaining to the commissioning, calculation, drafting and intended use of the Home Office Identity Fraud Steering Committee’s figures on identity fraud that were published on 2 February 2006.

Your request has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I can confirm that the Home Office does hold information on this subject. We believe that some of the information that you have asked for is already reasonably accessible to you. This was published in documents on 2 February 2006. A table showing data and calculations of the cost of identity fraud can be accessed from the home page of the Home Office Identity Theft Website – www.identitytheft.org.uk. Information about the commissioning and use of the updated estimate of identity fraud is contained in a Written Ministerial Statement from Andy Burnham. This is available at: [link]

Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act exempts the Home Office from complying with the duty to supply you with this information on the grounds that it is already reasonably accessible to you. Should you have difficulties in accessing this information by the means listed above please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Other information was provided to ministers in relation to the updated estimate of the cost of identity fraud. After careful consideration it has been determined that this information is exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 35(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act. This provides that information which relates to the formulation or development of government policy can be withheld where the public interest falls in favour of non-disclosure. We consider that the information contained in the briefing falls within this exemption.

In applying this exemption the Home Office has had to balance the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest in disclosing the information.

In doing so, we have had regard to the public interest in members of the public having access to information that enables them to understand how Ministers work and take decisions. We have also had regard to the fact that knowledge about the way government works, and the information on which it has based its decisions, may increase the public contribution to the policy making process, thereby rendering it more effective and broadly-based.

However, we have also had regard to a number of factors weighing against release. Disclosure of this information, which is in relation to an area of policy in the process of being formulated, could damage the ability of Ministers and their officials to seek and provide free and frank advice. If officials believe that their advice in relation to ongoing policy formulation will be disclosed, there is a significant danger of a reduction in candour on their part. Similarly, Ministers may be less willing to seek advice on certain matters if they believe that such advice might be disclosed. A reduction in the willingness of officials and Ministers to seek candid advice may lead to policies being formulated on the basis of poorer, more narrowly based advice, which would clearly not be in the public interest.

We have carefully considered where the public interest test lies in this case and concluded that the balance is in favour of non-disclosure.

We have also had to consider the confidential nature of the correspondence on this subject. After careful consideration it has been determined that the “in confidence” exemption, under Section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act, applies. This states that information is exempt information if:

(a) it was obtained by the public authority from any other person (including another public authority); and

(b) the disclosure of the information to the public (otherwise than under this Act) by the public authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other person.

In applying this exemption we have had to consider that organisations supplied information to us in confidence. The information provided relates to financial losses and was supplied on the basis that only agreed information would be published. This agreed information is included in the table described above – see paragraph 3. To release any other information would leave the Government open to legal proceedings, harm our relationship with those supplying the information to us and potentially reduce the level of cooperation that we would otherwise have expected with future and on-going projects.

Section 41 is an absolute exemption, and as such we are not required to assess the balance of the public interest in relation to this exemption.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our decision by submitting your complaint to:

Information Policy Team
Information and Record Management Service
Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Should you request a review, the department’s handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response.

Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely



Kevin Burt
Identity Fraud Reduction Team

I can understand how some correspondence would be exempt, but not all. And given that I was requetsing information about how they'd drafted the figures on ID fraud (or at least their umbrella-like interpretation of it) the initial correspondance I received was from the "ID Card Team".