APPENDIX 2
Letter from the Clerk, Public Administration
Committee, to all Departments
As you may remember, the Select Committee on Public
Administration has continued the practice initiated in 1995-1996
by the Public Services Committee of obtaining from the Table Office
of the House of Commons a list of the questions which the Table
Office has 'blocked' in the previous session because of Ministers'
refusal to answer. For the last two years the Committee asked
departments to expand on the reasons given for such refusals,
and this year it has decided to do the same again, for answers
given in the 1998-99 session. I enclose a copy of the letter from
the Principal Clerk, Table Office dated 27 January 2000, and the
part of the list that relates to your department.
The Committee would like you to explain more fully
why it was necessary to withhold information; to indicate, where
a refusal is justified by reference to a 'practice' or a policy,
what is the reason for that practice or policy; and to indicate
in each case where there is not reference to the Code of Practice
on Access to Government Information (which, as you know, the guidance
on answering Parliamentary Questions says should be referred to
when departments withhold information in response to a Parliamentary
Question) how the refusal relates to the Code. The Committee does
not need any further information on cases where the information
requested was not held or collected by the Department, or was
the responsibility of another Department.
I should be grateful if you could reply by Wednesday,
5 July.
9 June 2000
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