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Last updated: 09 December 2009
Meeting held on Friday 11 September
in Room 215, Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall at 2.30pm
Roger Smethurst (In the Chair)
Professor Christopher Andrew
Professor Peter Hennessy
Ministry Of Defence
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Northern Ireland Office
Home Office
The National Archives
GCHQ
SIS
Cabinet Office
Alan Glennie (Secretary)
Roger opened the meeting by welcoming members of the Group to the Cabinet Office and thanking the Intelligence, Security and Resilience Group for hosting the meeting. Apologies for absence had been received from the Security Service.
The Group had before them the following draft revised terms of reference:
‘To consider requests from historians and other researchers of security and intelligence records and to respond where possible by:
The Consultative Group will report as necessary to the Security Adviser to the Prime Minister.’
A revised terms of reference for the Group, and a change of title, were needed as a means of more accurately reflecting its consultative rather then advisory role. The use of ‘consider’ and ‘respond’ might also help in managing expectations of what the Group was capable of delivering. It was proposed that the Group should report as necessary to the Security Adviser to the Prime Minister (Robert Hannigan). This was on the basis that Robert Hannigan had responsibility for intelligence policy matters at the centre, which included the disclosure of records. The revised terms of reference reflected comments that had been made by departments and the intelligence agencies and copies had been sent in advance to Professor Andrew and Professor Hennessy.
The Consultative Group agreed the revised terms of reference and a change of title to the Consultative Group on Security and Intelligence Records. It was also agreed that the revised terms of reference were a better reflection of reality and the way the Group operated.
The intention was to have cyclical representation from the academic community on the Consultative Group, ideally changing every two to three years but in a manner that maintained continuity. The question of academic representation had been discussed at a meeting Roger had had with Professor Andrew and Professor Hennessy in July 2009 and a number of possible additions to represent the academic community had been identified. It could be that the number of representatives from the academic community on the Consultative Group should remain at two as it had been from the outset. There could, however, be a case for raising the number of those who could represent the academic community on the Consultative Group to three or four. Increasing the number to three would, for example, allow for the possibility of one of the other two not being able to attend a meeting of the Consultative Group. In identifying replacements or additions to represent the academic community on the Consultative Group a factor to be borne in mind would be the distance the academic would have to travel to attend meetings of the Consultative Group.
The Consultative Group agreed the number of representatives from the academic community on the Consultative Group should remain at its current level of two for the time being. It was also agreed that the situation should be reviewed in the light of any developments following the next cyclical change in representation from the academic community on the Consultative Group.
Following completion of the `Dacre’ review the Prime Minister had announced on 10 June 2009 that the 30 year rule would be reduced and that a formal government response would be forthcoming. Roger had hoped to report to the Group when the Government’s response would be published but a date had still to be fixed. He understood there was currently consultation with the review team on the detail of a formal response and it was hoped we might hear something soon. Professor Hennessy pointed out there would be difficulty in approving the necessary changes in legislation before the General Election. It could be 2-3 years before the benefits of a reduced closed period would come through and that it would be the next crop of students who would benefit.
The Secretary said he wanted to focus on the outstanding requests from students made ahead of their meeting with students that had been cancelled in December 2008. The requests had been quite complicated and taken a great deal of time to process without resulting in the release of much information. Requests had been received from students for records concerning Spain and Gibraltar (1936-45), Britain’s end of empire struggles (post 1945); the rise of Arab terrorism (1968-74). The requests covered over 40 files many of which were Security Service case files on specific individuals or were described on the TNA catalogue as being retained by departments under section 3.4 of the Public Records Act. It was Security Service policy not to consider records which were less than 50 years old for release outside of their normal programme of review and release. Material retained by departments had now been reviewed and the need to continue to withhold it had been confirmed. However, two files – MEPO 3/2395 and CAB 130/620 – had been released. Another request had concerned activities of the British Embassy in Madrid (1940-46) and GCHQ had been able to provide some material to the requestor on a discretionary basis.
There were no set procedures on how requests to the Consultative Group for the release of security and intelligence-related records should be handled. This included whether it should be the Cabinet Office or those concerned with the records being requested who should respond to the applicant. A draft ‘decision tree’ had been prepared by the Cabinet Office that was designed to clarify the position on how requests made to the Consultative Group should be handled. This should be helpful to both applicants and departments and the intelligence agencies. In essence it showed the decision tree that:
It was accepted that for a request to be covered by the Consultative Group it would not be necessary for the records to be over 30 years olds. It would, however, be necessary to indicate the range of legislation that applied to the requests to be covered by the Consultative Group.
The Consultative Group agreed, subject to the points made in discussion, the decision tree for the handling of requests for security and intelligence-related records.
Roger explained that identifying forthcoming releases of security and intelligence records formed part of the Group’s terms of reference and that publication of the minutes of the Group’s meetings provided an opportunity to publicise information about forthcoming releases subject to agreement of wording from officials. Members of the group reported the following -
Undertaking an annual review of releases now formed part of the revised terms of reference. When the Cabinet Office had previously requested details of recently released security and intelligence-related records the responses from departments and the intelligence agencies had been in different formats. This had made if difficult to assemble a digest in a consistent manner of what had been released. A draft proforma had been prepared by the Cabinet Office, based on the fields in TNA’s listing tool with the provision for free text, that should make it easier for departments and the intelligence agencies to record what had been released and provide the Cabinet Office with a more consistent means of pulling together an annual digest of releases for publication on the Consultative Group’s website.
The intention would be for the Cabinet Office to write round in January for details of releases that could be used to populate the digest. This should enable the process to be built-in as part of the annual release of records at the 30-year point year. It might not necessarily be a comprehensive listing and could give pointers to where records could be found. Departments and the intelligence agencies would, of course, need to have in place procedures for including the details of any security and intelligence-related records that had been released during the year and not part of annual release at the 30-year point. Once the annual digest was up and running consideration would be given to the possibility of doing digests for previous annual releases.
The Consultative Group took note of the arrangements for an annual digest of security and intelligence releases to be published on the Group’s website.
Various international agreements concluded since the end of the Second World War, most notably UKUSA, had provided for the exchange of Sigint between the Sigint agencies of the United Kingdom and the countries concerned. GCHQ had avowed the existence of the UKUSA agreement in December 2006 and the date on which it was signed (6 March 1946) but no other details of the agreement had been released. GCHQ were in discussion with their United States counterparts concerning the release of the full text of the UKUSA agreement and some related correspondence in the immediate post-war period. Discussions were also taking place with counterparts over the release of similar agreements.
The Consultative Group took note of the update on UKUSA agreement given by GCHQ and noted that the intention was to combine its release with similar agreements.
Roger thanked the FCO for agreeing to host a meeting with students working with security and intelligence records on Friday 4 December. Invitations to attend would be extended to agencies and departments represented on the Group and to post graduate and post doctorate students and their Professors from Queen Mary College, Corpus Christi, Kings College, Aberystwyth University, University of Warwick, University of Reading, University of Salford and University of Surrey. It was important that the meeting should be structured so that students would get the most value from the discussions. Their input in advance would help officials understand what students wanted and to structure the meeting. Students would therefore be invited to say in advance what they are interested in and to give a brief presentation. The meeting might also include a brief talk from a departmental reviewer who could talk through the handling of a request for information. Roger said he would chair the meeting and his aim was to ensure the students find it a worthwhile and productive event.
Alan would be in touch in advance of the meeting on 4 December 2009 with proposals for the next meeting of the Group.
7 October 2009