cc: "Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)" date: Thu Oct 29 14:20:25 2009 from: Phil Jones subject: RE: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request to: "Ogden Annie Ms (MAC)" , "Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD)" , "Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)" Annie, Dave, Thanks for the thoughts. Still undecided but I probably won't. Aware of academic freedom and aware that I might not get such a reply as I got from Hull. It will likely just inflame matters more, but I do feel strongly about academics moving outside their area of expertise. Cheers Phil At 12:46 29/10/2009, Ogden Annie Ms (MAC) wrote: Dear Phil, Do you know the heads of department at Oxford and Anglia Ruskin? Are you sure that they would dissociate themselves from their colleagues who have written? I know how frustrating you must find all of this so can understand why you feel you want to do something. But if you do decide to write, I would be cautious about how such a message is phrased - along lines of written more in sorrow than in anger... We want to avoid any accusation that you are trying to get people fired because they disagree with you. Best, Annie ------------------------------- Annie Ogden, Head of Communications, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Tel:+44 (0)1603 592764 [1]www.uea.ac.uk/comm ............................................ _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Phil Jones [[2]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:26 PM To: Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD); Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Cc: Ogden Annie Ms (MAC); Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD) Subject: RE: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128; EIR_09-19) - Response Dave, I am also happy with this response. There is a mistake in your Oct 29 letter in the Code of Practice link. The ! should be a / As an aside, this same person (Keiller) has emailed Keith Briffa since he put a web page up this Wednesday on the Yamal chronology. [3]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/yamal2009/ Annie is aware of all this. The email to Keith is requesting responses to an earlier email and is slightly threatening. In it Keiller states that he finds Keith's responses lack scientific rigour! So instead he accepts the word of Stephen McIntyre who has hardly any academic publications and has never produced any tree-ring chronologies in his life! I have had a thought about Keiller and the Oxford Professor. I may have mentioned to you a malicious email that was sent somewhere in the UK pointing to all these awful right wing web sites. The email was passed on to me and it came from an Emeritus Reader at Hull (first name Sonja). I was incensed by this and sent a response to the head of department of Geography at Hull. I did this on Wednesday after Keith's web page went up. I have had a couple of exchanges with the Head Of Geography. I just got this back I know, I feel for you being in that position. If its any consolation we've had it here for years, very pointed commentary at all external seminars and elsewhere, always coming back to the same theme. Since Sonja retired I am a lot more free to push my environmental interests without ongoing critique of my motives and supposed misguidedness - I've signed my department up to 10:10 campaign and have a taskforce of staff and students involved in it.... Every now and then people say to me sotto voce with some bemusement, 'and when Sonja finds out, how will you explain it to her...!' The thought is whether we should follow the same course with these two at Anglia Ruskin and Oxford? I'm away tomorrow and Mon/Tues next week. Cheers Phil At 10:57 29/10/2009, Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD) wrote: Dave, I am happy that we progress this via the expedient route and bypass the internal review, we should follow the advice of the ICO and include an anonymised version of our response to Prof Jones. This should then become our standard approach for any further similar requests. Regards, Jonathan _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:21 AM To: Jones Philip Prof (ENV); Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD); Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD) Cc: Ogden Annie Ms (MAC) Subject: FW: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128; EIR_09-19) - Response Importance: High Folks, This is the first test of our 'new' approach to such queries. Dr. Keiller's request was for: "1. A copy of any digital version of the CRUTEM station data set that has been sent from CRU to Peter Webster and/or any other person at Georgia Tech between January 1, 2007 and June 25, 2009 2. A copy of any instructions or stipulations accompanying the transmission of data to Peter Webster and/or any other person at Georgia Tech between January 1, 2007 and June 25, 2009 limiting its further dissemination or disclosure. " Question 2 we answer in our original response (attached to Dr. Keiller's response to me). We are overtime on our response to Dr. Keiller but this is a result of sorting the response to Dr. Jones at Cambridge and agreeing our new approach. We have 2 options: (1) Proceed as in past with a referral to Jonathan, or (2) expedite the process by sending Dr. Keiller directly to the Information Commissioner. I have attached letters for both approaches. I have been in touch with the ICO on this and they stated that this approach would be ok as long as we made it clear that we are by-passing internal review and the reasons why. They did also suggest that we send a copy of the prior internal review that dealt with the request to this new requester (minus names of course) - in other words, we attach a copy of JCF's letter to Prof. Jones to the letter we send to Dr. Keiller. Are we happy to go directly to the ICO at this point? Cheers, Dave _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Keiller, Donald [ [4]mailto:Don.Keiller@anglia.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:48 PM To: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Subject: FW: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128; EIR_09-19) - Response Importance: High Dear Mr. Palmer, I am still awaiting your response for my request for an internal review of the reasons for non-disclosure of the information I requested. I believe that I have allowed sufficient time for such a review and if I do not receive a complete response describing the outcome of this review within 7 working days, I will make a direct complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office. Yours sincerely, Dr. D. R. Keiller _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Keiller, Donald Sent: 18 September 2009 16:17 To: 'David.Palmer@uea.ac.uk' Subject: FW: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128; EIR_09-19) - Response Importance: High Dear Mr. Palmer having had some more time to digest exactly what is said in the attached: Firstly I note that you have not stated that I have the right to an Internal Review of the decisions that were stated in the attached response. By not explicitly stating this, you are in technical breach of the Act I now wish that an internal review of the decision to withhold data is undertaken. In this connection I note that Regulation 9(1) states "A public authority shall provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect the authority to do so, to applicants and prospective applicants". In particular I want to know why you think it is unreasonable to ask for the exact dataset, as described in a peer- reviewed published paper, on a subject of great public interest and where the usual scientific convention is that authors must provide sufficient detail to allow others to replicate their work. How can you possibly claim it is "manifestly unreasonable" to send me the same data that you have sent elsewhere without any actionable undertakings from that recipient? I also require UEA to justify its assertion that disclosure of said information and data, which virtually all Academies of Science and most journals regard as essential, would have an "adverse effect on international relations and would damage relations with scientists & institutions from other nations". This assertion requires evidence to support it, otherwise it appears to be merely a convenient excuse. Finally I note that there is an obvious contradiction in your claim that you are trying "to seek permission from data suppliers in advance of the next update of the CRUTEM database in 2010 in order to provide public access to this data" and the fact that you are unable to show anything other than a couple of rather old and ineffectual documents to support your claim that this is a significant problem. Accordingly I ask that you immediately publish or send me the data for which you cannot substantiate that an actionable restrictive contract exists. Yours sincerely, Dr. D.R. Keiller, Deputy Head of Life Sciences _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) [ [5]mailto:David.Palmer@uea.ac.uk] Sent: 11 September 2009 13:16 To: Keiller, Donald Subject: Environmental Information Regulations 2004 request (FOI_09-128; EIR_09-19) - Response Dr. Keiller Attached please find a response to your request received on 14 August 2009. If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me. Cheers, Dave Palmer ____________________________ David Palmer Information Policy & Compliance Manager University of East Anglia Norwich, England NR4 7TJ Information Services Tel: +44 (0)1603 593523 Fax: +44 (0)1603 591010 [6]Email has been scanned for viruses by Altman Technologies' email management service EMERGING EXCELLENCE: In the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, more than 30% of our submissions were rated as 'Internationally Excellent' or 'World-leading'. 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Please note that this message has been sent over public networks which may not be a 100% secure communications [8]Email has been scanned for viruses by Altman Technologies' email management service Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------