I get requests from god knows where,
For missing files that are not there,
They were not there again today,
I wish that you would go away,

Although I know this can’t be proved,
I’m sure we had them when we moved,
We packed them well, but in our haste,
We put them in a box marked ‘waste’

We do not have a single datum,
I told you lads, the doggy ate ‘em.
Secrecy agreements too,
A thieving monkey from the zoo?

Don’t ask me now, don’t ask me later,
There’s just no sign of that raw data
Use Met data that’s been padded,
That’s data that’s had value added,

I put the files upon the stair,
I looked last week, they were not there.
I couldn’t find them come what may,
Maybe they just blew away

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/environmental_information_regulation.aspx

Dear Mr. Mosher

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – INFORMATION REQUEST

(Our Ref: FOI_09-69)

Further to your request for information received on 24 July 2009, I have consulted relevant units within the University and, pursuant to my obligations under section 16 of the Act to provide advice and guidance, I am writing to request clarification of several aspects of your request. Apologies for the delay in responding to you on this matter, but as you may know, we have received a large number of requests for information under the Act recently and it is taking some time to deal with each request.

In your request, you have asked for a copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding entering into confidentiality agreements and verbal agreements, and for a copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding the preservation of written agreements.

The University does not have one, overarching policy or procedure regarding entering into confidentiality or verbal agreements. Each division within the University has policies and procedures specific to their area of work . This also applies to the preservation of written agreements. In order to answer your question for all of the University, it is highly likely that we would exceed the statutory appropriate limit of 18 person hours to locate, retrieve & review the requested information.

In order to avoid this situation, I would therefore ask you to clarify what aspect of the University’s work would be the focus of your request for such policies and procedures. For example, given the nature of the other components of your request, are you simply interested in policies in relation to research activities?

Please note that the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 will be ‘suspended’ until such time as we receive clarification of your request. Once that is received, the ‘clock’ will recommence, your request considered, and you will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale, subject to the information not being exempt or containing a reference to a third party. You will be informed of any exemptions or references to third parties.

I trust this is to your satisfaction and look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely

David Palmer

Information Policy & Compliance Manager

University of East Anglia

Is not there some confusion here about obtaining, upon request the raw data, that the CRU sources currently provide to CRU and the original raw data (before the 1980s when the lose of these records occurred) that were provided originally and then adjusted by CRU. I suspect that CRU could show “value added” after the 1980s and thus they might have a legitimate data series from that time forward.

Of course, since we have the satellite series for that period, I would have to say that UAH rules – or maybe RSS rules.

This should tie in nicely with my request (see this comment at Lucia’s). We ought to get a list of organizations where we don’t need to ask as well as a list of ones where we do