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FOI – marking documents with potentially exempt ma
Author:	Kevin Miles
Date:	Wednesday, 19th Jan 2005 10:44
Views:	1,874 (excluding Digests and RSS feeds)
Category:	Information Issues
URL:	http://www.freepint.com/go/b31147
TRL has been contacted by some public authorities inviting us to identify information where we would wish to restrict FOI disclosure unless an overriding public interest exists. I have also asked these same public authorities how they wish to be informed of sensitive information within the documents and emails we exchange during the course of our business, i.e. how they would like documents to be marked. To date no-one has been able to offer any thoughts. The reason for this seemingly innocuous request is three-fold: 1. I would like to develop a single marking method to give our staff a fair chance of correctly and consistently marking our documents 2. I need public authority staff to have an easy and recognisable way of identifying information TRL considers sensitive to ensure their staff can spot sensitive material within large documents and consider appropriate exemptions 3. If each public authority and each of their contractors, suppliers, etc adopt differing standards / methods, staff in each public authority will be faced with a bewildering range of forms, appendices, hand-marked documents, etc. In these circumstances I frankly doubt the strength of document scrutiny to ensure our thoughts are taken into account. I’ve had a number of thoughts to resolve the dilemma:- 1. Add an appendix listing potentially exempt material. 2. Mark relevant paragraphs in letters, emails and documents with a side-bar using Border functions in word processors 3. Insert a text box with suitable warnings before each paragraph containing potentially exempt material 4. Use page footnotes to identify potentially exempt material However, each of these approaches has its problems, either physically making it easy for public authority staff to spot potentially exempt material or technically inserting the “mark”, especially when emails are involved. As there does not seem to be any formal advice coming from central sources it may be best for our profession to drive the standards before a plethora of approaches are developed. Any ideas out there? Kevin Miles Head of Knowledge Management TRL Ltd

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Topic	Author	Date	ID
FOI – marking documents with potentially exempt ma TRL has been contacted by some public authorities inviting us to identify information where we would wish to restrict FOI ...	Kevin Miles	19/01/05 10:44	31147
Re: FOI – marking documents with potentially exemp Hi Kevin No immediate answers I'm afraid. However this may make a good discussion topic at a London Connects FOI monthly ...	Alison Ross-Dow	20/01/05 10:58	31156
Re: FOI – marking documents with potentially exemp Will raise this at the FoI Forum but not sure what the reaction will be. After all, most contracts are ...	Nick Tjaardstra	26/01/05 12:59	31205
Re: FOI – marking documents with potentially exemp Alison, Any help you or your colleagues can offer would help. Re the type of public authorities, I’m not sure ...	Kevin Miles	20/01/05 13:47	31158
Re: FOI – marking documents with potentially exemp Kevin, I would suggest firstly training your staff, so that they have an understanding of what information has to be ...	Sara Somerville	24/01/05 11:47	31183
Re: FOI – marking documents with potentially exemp Kevin At the end of January, I chaired a CIG meeting on FOI. One of the speakers was Dr Sandy Chalmers, ...	Olivia Freeman	10/02/05 15:38	31353

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