I’m pursuing other avenues as well, to get an adequate response to my Freedom of Information Act request from the Prime Minister’s office about who received coaching for their Leveson testimony, who provided it and who paid for it, but in the meantime I’ve also sent in a demand for an internal review as follows:
Dear Prime Minister’s Office,
I write with regard to my FOI request FOI316644, to which your Cabinet office responded that the information was not held in the Cabinet Office’s paper or electronic records.
The careful wording of this response, and the fact that I addressed my enquiry to the Prime Minister’s office and not to the Cabinet Office, suggests deliberate evasion.
Coaching (or ‘refamiliarisation’ to use the PM’s laughable term for it) cannot possibly be organised without SOMEONE in government having full records of who received it, who provided it, and who paid for it.
I require your response by return confirming who in fact does have this information – and then I require it to be provided immediately, under the original FOI request, and not under a further 20-day period. I should have had this information no later than 2 July, by law!
Yours faithfully,
Steve Walker
More news as it develops, both on this and on those ‘other avenues’.