FOI
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Asked why the government was asking civil servants to shred emails in advance of the Freedom of Information Act, the PMOS said it was a normal part of good computer file management. It was the same in any large organisation.
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Downing Street Says.
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It was the same in every large organizations… who’s duty is to shareholders, managers, CEO, etc and has no concept of public service.
Now we know where all the Andersen Accounting guys went when they lots their jobs.
Comment by Julian — 24 Dec 2004 on 11:18 am | LinkBeing the lifelong cynic that I am, I find this whole issue frankly one of the most frightening developments of recent times. We KNOW how little regard Bliar pays to the correct running of Cabinet government; this is just one more little stunt to make it easier for the ruling elite to get away with even more than they ever have done anyway.
Imagine what an utter farce the Hutton and Butler enquiries would have been without old archived emails and so on. Admittedly, the results were a farce, but at least they illustrated the inner working of "government".
And as a matter of fact, in most large businesses that I have worked in, no email is deleted if it pertains to work. Everyone keeps EVERYTHING – and archives it when it gets to a certain age; because we all know that there will come a time when someone tries to drop us in the shit unless we’ve kept that email that says "I already told you about that a year ago" or whatever.
So even that reasoning is rubbish, as far as I’m concerned. No, there is one purpose and one purpose only to this – to get rid of as much unwanted information as possible before we can all ask for it.
As an afterthought, I can almost guarantee that when the Freedom of Info act comes into force and the public is queueing up to get their hands on various facts; the amount of information which SHOULD have been kept but has been "inadvertently destroyed" will be staggering – I can predict in advance that there will be another rigged equiry to cover it.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 24 Dec 2004 on 2:55 pm | Link