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    Response... Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on September 1, 2022, 7:26 pm, in reply to "Good one. Nm"

    As I thought, they don't think it's relevant to the original FOI request:

    *****

    Dear Mr [M],

    Thank you for your email.

    I understand that you wish to request an internal review of the response to your freedom of information request (01468133), which was sent to you on 18 July. In your email you state “I would like to request an internal review into the issues raised by these investigations and the related decision to revoke RT's license to broadcast in the UK”, outline evidence related to the BBC’s reporting on Ukraine (which you consider to demonstrate failures in maintaining impartiality), and highlight your concerns about the BBC First complaints system.

    To confirm, an internal review will only consist of a review of whether Ofcom’s Information Rights Team was correct to withhold disclosure of the information you requested. It is not within the remit of the Internal Reviews Team to consider broadcasting investigation decisions made by the Standards and Audience Protection (‘SAP’) Team (including the decision to revoke RT's license to broadcast in the UK), nor to consider your concerns regarding the BBC first complaints system.

    If you still wish to submit a request for an internal review of your FOI response, please confirm by responding to this email.

    Separately, I can pass your concerns on to the SAP Team for logging, after which they may be used in the development of future policy positions.

    Kind regards,

    Internal Reviews

    *****

    I wasn't entirely sure about what information they were 'withholding' from me. Here's the relevant paragraph from their initial response:

    'In response to your request to provide “documentation about the substance of these complaints” – our decisions summarise the relevant complaints, and we do not usually disclose information relating to the substance of a complaint where this information exceeds what is published in our decisions. This information is exempt from disclosure because it falls within section 44 of the Act, which exempts the disclosure of information where this is in turn prohibited by another enactment. Ofcom is prohibited by section 393 of the Communications Act 2003 from disclosing information about a particular business (in this case, ANO TV Novosti) which we have obtained in the course of exercising our functions (in this case, the investigation of broadcast standards complaints), unless we have the consent of the business or one of the statutory gateways to disclosure under section 393(2) is met, neither of which applies here.' - - https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/241819/outcome-of-29-investigations-into-rt.pdf

    The 'substance of these complaints' that I was requesting was whether RT had been accused of dishonesty, or 'spreading documented falsehoods' as I put it. Ofcom's decision doc laid out all the information they were basing their verdicts on, as far as I know. It was just that they decided to make it about impartiality not accuracy, something basically impossible to take issue with directly as it's so subjective. Maybe they thought I was asking for information about who complained about their coverage? But then why mention business confidentiality in the case of RT?

    I'm disinclined to pursue an internal review on this part of their response, unless someone thinks there might be value to doing so that I've missed...

    Otherwise delighted to hear that my concerns 'may be used in the development of future policy positions'(!) Will get back to them and ask for different contacts (also have another look at the website) where my message is more likely to have some effect.

    I

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