Letter to the Parliamentary Relations
and Devolution Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, from
the Second Clerk of the Committee, 24 June 2004
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE ANNUAL REPORT
2003-04
Thank you for your letter of 14 June enclosing
the FCO's responses to the Committee's written questions on the
FCO Annual Report 2003-04.
The Committee was disappointed that so much
of the material related to the Office's PSA targets in the annex
attached to your memorandum was sent with a "restricted"
covering. As you are aware, the Committee prefers to conduct as
much of its scrutiny work as possible in the public domain. It
would prefer to be able to discuss the currently restricted material
freely with the Permanent Under-Secretary at its forthcoming evidence
session, and to publish the evidence with its final report.
The Committee has requested me to write, therefore,
and ask you to re-examine the material in the restricted annex
and to declassify it. If not, could you determine whether the
material could be declassified with a few redactions of key figures
or text?
The Committee hopes you will be able to meet
its request but if this is not the case, could you set out the
reasons why this material has been classified "restricted"
in your response. I look forward to your reply.
Geoffrey Farrar
Second Clerk of the Committee
24 June 2004
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