Foreign Office beats Cabinet Office
The Ministry of Justice likes different government departments to handle freedom of information requests consistently, but it doesn't always happen.
Back in January I put FOI requests to both the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office for documents relating to the 1996 state visit to the UK of the then French President, Jacques Chirac. This was ahead of the state visit of the current President Nicolas Sarkozy at the end of March.
The Foreign Office's material arrived a week after Sarkozy had gone home. But at least they were apologetic about it, helpful in tone, keen to communicate and diligent about keeping me in touch with progress while I waited for the information.
In contrast, the information from the Cabinet Office has only recently arrived, five months later. All their communications have been unapolegetic in tone and purely formulaic. And they've provided less than the Foreign Office did.
Sadly the information they've sent has little in the way of important political or diplomatic details which would really shed light on UK-France relations. But they did include the briefingprepared for John Major, then prime minister, about Madame Chirac's birthday and the sporting success of Paris Saint-Germain.
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