FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4185
You asked
I would like some information about a meeting, events leading up to it and its aftermath. To assist you in identifying this incident please see the following list:
A MailOnline article about the deputy national statistician promoting black lives matter in an email to all staff: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8537575/Senior-civil-servant-provokes-storm-endorses-Black-Lives-Matter-email-hundreds-staff.html An FOI release featuring the deputy national statistician's email in which he invites all staff to a meeting about racism: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/correspondenceregardingapppweeklymessage A second MailOnline article about a reading list shared at the ONS which promoted looting: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10148151/White-civil-servants-told-confront-privilege-woke-reading-list.html A tweet from ONS Focus promoting a blog which appears to promote the same reading list: https://twitter.com/ONSfocus/status/1270337267475853312 An entry on this blog in which the author describes being invited to give a presentation to sixty senior leaders about racism. Given the dates, I presume this is the same meeting mentioned by the deputy national statistician above: https://medium.com/@bbrownie.bb/im-just-one-woman-1b12d54e7a51 Could you please supply:
The full transcript of the Senior Leadership meeting referenced in te previously mentioned online blog, including names of those leaders and their comments. If this meeting took place on zoom or similar then the video file would be ideal. Please consider that this meeting was open to all staff and has been promoted to the wider public by ONS Focus.
The full reading list reported on by MailOnline and all internal correspondence related to it. I want to understand how this list came to the ONS, if it was approved by anyone, and how widely it was shared.
We said
Thank you for your request.
To clarify the statement made in Question 1 of your request, the meeting referred to was not open to all staff, it was a meeting of senior leaders. However, some more junior colleagues were invited to share their lived experiences of discrimination. We do not hold a transcript of this meeting.
We understand that to fulfil our underlying commitment to transparency and openness, we must allow for a certain level of disruption, particularly where a request has a serious purpose and value to the public. However, as this event occurred roughly 2 years ago and was covered by newspaper articles at the time (referenced in your request), there is little additional context or information that processing this request could contribute to this purpose.
In reference to the rest of your request, under section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), we are not required to comply with requests which have the potential to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress. We consider section 14(1) to be engaged in this instance.
Firstly, this request would place an oppressive administrative burden on our staff by requiring them to search for, locate, extract, compile, and redact the requested internal correspondence. This would require the coordination and instruction of every member of ONS staff to search through their email accounts and personal workspaces for any trace of correspondence related to the topic. As this event occurred over two years ago, any archived mailboxes of staff members who have left would also need to be searched. Once this has been completed, these emails would then need to be compiled and duplicates removed ready for review. This substantial amount of information would then need to undergo scrutiny from various members of staff to identify and redact personal data, as well as any other relevant exemptions that would need to be considered.
Furthermore, as the scope of this request spans 'all internal correspondence' related to one event, this will unearth a large amount of material that would not fulfil the aim of this request, decreasing the value that this excessive amount of effort and resource would produce.
Secondly, actioning this request would be likely to cause distress for members of ONS staff. We have a duty of care with respect to the wellbeing of our employees which must be considered.