This snapshot, taken on 16/02/2006, shows web content selected for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search boxes may not work in archived websites.
·
Accountability
and standards of Conduct (Chapter B2)
·
Financial Procedures
(Chapter B3)
·
Record Keeping and
Documentation (Chapter B4)
·
Audit (Chapter B5)
·
Ethics and Good Customer
Practice (Chapter B6)
·
Open Government (Chapter B7)
Public
sector purchasers, as stewards of public resources, are expected to observe the
highest standards of honesty and fairness and to conduct their business in a way
that ensures full accountability. This
Part of the Procurement Manual is concerned with the rules and conventions which
govern the activities of those involved in public procurement, including
financial procedures and government accounting rules, ethics, open government,
the role of audit and record keeping.
Heads
of Management Units and Agency Chief Executives (ACEs) are responsible for
ensuring responsible and appropriately trained staff are appointed to carry out
procurement. In making those
appointments they should have regard to their delegations from FRM (or, where
applicable, from IMPE in respect of IT procurement). In the case of ACEs the delegations should be interpreted in
the light of the delegated responsibilities set out in their Framework
Documents.
Only
those individuals with the appropriate delegated levels of authority should
carry out procurement functions. Staff
who do not have delegated authority to carry out procurement should not enter
into discussions with suppliers or make commitments on behalf of the Department
or its Executive Agencies.
In
order to protect public funds, payment systems must guard against fraud.
Robust systems also protect staff against any suspicion of financial
impropriety. Wherever possible the
four key procurement duties should be separated (carried out by different
people), namely:
·
approval to incur or commit
expenditure
·
ordering goods or services
·
certifying the satisfactory
receipt of goods or completion of the services
·
authorising payment.
It
is essential to keep the various financial and contractor functions separate. If
functions are combined, charges of collusion with a supplier or misappropriation
of funds could be difficult to refute.
If
separation of all four functions is not possible, so that some have to be
combined, do not combine:
In
addition, the officers certifying and authorising expenditure should ideally be
organisationally separate from one another (e.g. an authorising officer should
not be a certifying officer's immediate line manager) although it is recognised
that this can be difficult in a small Directorate.
When
setting up delegations, managers must use common sense.
If they cannot follow the rules exactly they should always ask themselves
what risks they might be running, and whether they could re-organise duties, or
introduce additional checks by senior officers, to avoid or minimise those
risks.
The
rules on separation of functions are
currently under review as part of the development of Resource Accounting and
Budgeting (RAB). Changes may
therefore occur in the future. Consult
the Procurement Policy Unit if you are unsure.
Definitive
guidance on separation of functions is to be found in Government Accounting, as supplemented by DTI’s
Finance Handbook. If in
doubt about any issues relating to separation of functions advice can also be
sought from the Internal Audit section responsible for your Directorate.
Procurement systems, arrangements and practices must at all times comply with the provisions of Government Accounting and the DTI’s Finance Handbook and other instructions including, in particular, the Procurement of Goods and Services module of the Department’s Resource Accounting and Budgeting (RAB) system.
Managers
must:
Procurement
staff must comply with all local arrangements at all times.
All
Government Departments have signed up to the CBI prompt payers code, thereby
undertaking to pay invoices promptly.. DTI has adopted British Standard BS 7890
“Method for achieving good payment performance in commercial transactions”,
which aims to help create better links between suppliers and customers and to
improve payment practices.
DTI
standard terms and conditions of contract for supplies and for services
stipulate that we should normally pay invoices within 30 days of receipt of a
correct invoice and acceptance of the goods or performance of the services.
However, DTI has in addition set itself a target of paying all invoices
not in dispute within 30 days.
Wherever
possible, links to financial procedures appear are identified where they apply
throughout this Manual, with appropriate cross-references.
More
generally, definitive guidance on financial and accounting matters is to be
found in:
·
Government Accounting
·
Finance Guidance on MANDRIN
·
Accounting Memoranda
held
by all MSOs and MUFOs
Requirements
It
is important that the Department has a uniquely identifiable and complete record
of each contract entered into. Without
such records the Department may not be able to:
·
meet its obligations of
accountability to Ministers and to Parliament,
·
refute accusations of
wrong-doing in its procurement activities, or
·
meet its obligations to
disclose information under Open Government.
You
must, therefore, ensure all contractual documents are uniquely identifiable.
This helps to avoid misunderstandings and potential waste of resources on
disputes and to enable proper oversight by management and audit authorities. Similarly, records must be kept of all discussions, notes of
meetings and particularly of any decisions taken at any stage in the procurement
process, together with the reasons for those decisions.
Contractual
documents must be kept on registered files.
It is also good practice to keep contractual documents separate from
other material. It can be helpful
to have separate files (appropriately cross-referenced) for each key stage of a
contract. At the very least, keep
pre-award and post-award documentation separate.
Every
contract or order must be assigned a unique reference number, which should be
used in all correspondence. Formal
amendments to a contract or order should also be given unique numbers showing
the order in which the amendments were made.
Documentation
retention periods are dictated by the Statute of Limitations and (where
applicable) EU requirements. Retention
for 6 years is typical.
Any
file containing the documents listed in Tables B-1 and B-2 must contain a
completed DTI Reg 73b, referring to this Manual (with the associated label
affixed to the file cover), unless the equipment or agreement will expire within
10 years of the opening of file.
Headquarters
staff can avoid the risk of premature
destruction on any of the items listed in Table B-2 by storing them in
registered files and by following the Departmental rule against the addition of
any new papers to registered files that are more than 5 years old.
Table B-1
|
Retention for 6
years1 from the date of completion of the contract |
Form No. |
|
Contract
Documents |
- |
|
Hire/Rental
Agreements |
- |
|
Successful
Tenders |
- |
|
Summary
of Tender Opening |
PF50 |
|
1
Limitations Act 1980 |
|
Table B-2
|
Retention for 6
years1 from the date of completion of the contract |
Form No. |
|
Disposal
Board papers |
- |
|
Evaluation
reports |
- |
|
Goods
Received Notes |
- |
|
HM
Customs and Excise Import documentation |
- |
|
Invitations
to Tender/Quotation Requests |
PF30 |
|
Maintenance/Software
licence agreements |
- |
|
Specifications |
- |
|
Successful
Quotations |
- |
|
Suppliers'
Advice Notes |
- |
|
Retention for 3 years2
after the last entry |
Form No. |
|
Stock
and Purchase Record Cards or Registers |
|
|
Retention for 2 years2 after the
financial year to which the document relates |
Form No. |
|
Advice
Notes |
|
|
Unsuccessful
Quotations |
- |
|
Unsuccessful
Tenders |
- |
|
1
Limitations Act 1980 2
Accounting Memoranda XV |
|
Procurement
Bulletins do not need to be placed on registered files:
they may then be destroyed locally at the appropriate time.
Government
Offices and Executive Agencies responsible for the local disposal of files must
ensure that their arrangements either include similar provisions, or others to
ensure that the requirements of these Retention Schedules can be met in every
case.
The above retention schedules are currently being reviewed. If in doubt about their applicability, consult Records Management in EPIC.
IA
have an important regulatory and reporting role in procurement.
This covers the ability of managers to adhere to agreed procedures,
achieve pre-determined objectives and generally to obtain value for money in all
purchase and contract transactions. IA
also scrutinise and report on matters of impropriety and where the risk of
fraud, theft or corruption may be unnecessarily high.
IA
have a right of access to all parts of the department and to all records that
are necessary for the duties. IA
have a right of direct access to the Department's Accounting Officer.
IA
also provide advice on controls to be built into new or re-designed systems.
Managers should, therefore, feel free to consult IA at any time,
independently of an actual audit, about such issues including remedial action to
be taken should weaknesses be found in local procedures.
Consult the Procurement Policy Unit in FRM if the procurement guidelines
appear unclear or need interpretation.
Because
of its nature, procurement activity is likely to be subject to frequent rigorous
scrutiny by IA. They
will expect to find the procedures and practices advocated in this Manual in
operation when an audit is carried out and they will seek to ensure that:
IA
may carry out a full systems audit of the procurement function within or across
particular Management Units or purchasing may be included as one topic within a
wider resource management audit centred on the DFO function.
An
annual plan of audits is agreed between IA and each HMU at the commencement of
the financial year. If a purchasing
or resource management audit is included in one of these plans, management at
the appropriate level will be notified in advance and consulted about the audit
objectives and precise timing of fieldwork.
During
audit fieldwork, IA interview key purchasing staff, review files and other
documentation, and selectively test individual transactions.
Management are kept informed of progress during the audit, and are told
of findings and recommendations at an End of Audit meeting.
Management are also invited to comment on a draft report, and to complete
an Action Document setting out the implementation date and officer responsible
for each recommendation. IA then
issue a final report, which is copied, to senior management and the National
Audit Office (NAO).
Internal
auditors are employed by the DTI to give assurance and advice on systems.
An audit assignment should therefore be viewed positively as an
opportunity to obtain expert advice on the controls that are necessary to
minimise risk. Recommendations to
strengthen systems should not be viewed as a criticism of management or staff.
The
DTI must satisfy itself, the Treasury and Parliament that its operations are
sound and subject to adequate and reliable systems of control.
The NAO has a statutory duty to certify DTI accounts and for reporting to
Parliament on DTI’s economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
The
NAO relies on the work carried out by IA but will also carry out its own audit
of financial systems and procurement procedures.
NAO
normally arrange their DTI audits through FRM.
Any request for information received directly from the NAO must be
referred to FRM2A before a response is made.
Advice
on any audit matter should be sought from the IA section responsible for your
Directorate.
It
is Government policy that in all dealings with suppliers and potential
suppliers, Departments must seek to preserve the highest standards of integrity,
objectivity, fairness, efficiency, courtesy and professionalism. Contractors acting as agents on behalf of Departments must
also adhere to these public sector standards
Procurement
staff should:
The
guidance contained in this sub-section of the Procurement Manual is also
available from the Procurement Policy Unit in FRM as a booklet “Guide to
Client Contractor Relationships” in the “Procurement in DTI “ series. This booklet is intended for use by both procurement staff
and suppliers and potential suppliers.
The
general principles regulating the conduct of civil servants are laid down in “The
Guide” (The DTI Staff Handbook).
Procurement staff should also consult CUP Guidance No. 55 “ Ethics in
Procurement” and follow any policy or procedures laid down by local
management.
Ethics
in procurement require standards of conduct that ensure that individuals and
organisations are trusted and respected by those with whom they deal. They are about the probity of officials and the propriety of
their actions.
Officials
such as purchasing staff who work closely with the private sector are in a
particularly sensitive position.
The
use of procurement procedures that are proof against fraud and corruption,
particularly the separation
of duties (see Section B.1.4), are of the highest importance.
It
is important that:
A
professional approach must be exercised in all dealings with suppliers.
Under
the Prevention of Corruption Acts 1889 to 1916 suppliers are forbidden from
making an offer or inducement of corrupt gifts or payment of commissions and
staff are forbidden from soliciting similar consideration.
Under
the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 public servants are forbidden to corruptly
accept any gift or consideration as an inducement or reward for:
The
Prevention of Corruption Act 1916 goes further in that any gift or consideration
received by an official from an organisation holding or seeking to obtain a
government contract will be deemed to have been received corruptly unless proved
to the contrary.
Staff
must refuse any offer that might be against the law as set out in the Prevention
of Corruption Acts 1889 to 1916 and, in their own interest, report any
irregularities immediately to line management.
The
offer of any gifts with a value of £10 or more or any material hospitality
of more than an incidental kind such as tea or coffee must
be recorded your Directorate’s register of gifts and hospitality, regardless
of whether or not it is accepted. Failure
to do so will constitute a disciplinary offence.
Contract
managers are responsible for ensuring that the rules on gifts and hospitality
are strictly adhered to both before and after contracts are awarded.
If
staff are offered gifts, they must
exercise discretion in dealing with suppliers or prospective suppliers. Officials or members of their families must not accept gifts
or gratuities other than diaries, calendars or similar publicity items, and
certainly nothing with a cost or value of more than £10.
Gifts with a retail value of £25
or more should be surrendered to HR Directorate.
Senior management must be consulted if non-acceptance would cause
misunderstanding or offence to the donor.
In
all cases, the decision to refuse or accept and the reasons for it must be
recorded in writing.
Hospitality
from suppliers may often not be acceptable in the public sector, although it may
be justifiable on general marketing grounds in the private sector.
However,
occasional material offered during the course of official duties may be accepted
provided that all the following considerations are fulfilled:
·
it would further the aims of
DTI;
·
the level of hospitality is
reasonable in the circumstances;
·
it has been openly offered;
and
·
it could not be construed as
any form of inducement and is unlikely to put officials under any obligation to
those offering it.
Lavish
or expensive entertainment of any form should be refused and reported to line
management, as should regular, frequent, annual or seasonal offers of
hospitality from any one individual or organisation.
Offers
to participate in any social events, such as sports events or theatre visits,
organised either jointly with or separately by suppliers should be refused and
reported.
Occasionally,
it may be considered appropriate to organise team-building events between groups
of officials involved in contract monitoring and staff from the service
suppliers they monitor. This would
be acceptable. However,
participation in any fringe social activities would be acceptable only if
non-attendance would impair good working relationships and on condition that
officials meet all their own expenses.
Offers
made by suppliers or potential suppliers to pay travelling, hotel or other
expenses may only be accepted with the authority of a senior manager.
Officials
should be free of all personal interests which may conflict, or appear to
conflict with the best interests of DTI. Those
having business relationships with outside organisations should carefully
consider the position in which they place themselves and DTI. To avoid any conflict, they should not invest in or have any
business interest in such organisations. Particular
care should be taken in not using business information that becomes available to
them in the course of their work for their personal gain, or that of their
relatives or friends. If at all in
doubt, staff should inform their line management in writing.
No
precise legal definition of fraud exists, but for practical purposes it may be
defined as the use of deception with the intention of obtaining an advantage,
avoiding an obligation or causing loss to another party. The
issue of fraud is dealt with more fully under financial propriety in the
“Finance
Handbook”,
where the fraud policy statement may also be found.
Managers
are responsible for identifying any risks, developing and maintaining effective
controls to prevent and detect fraud, and ensuring that those controls are being
complied with. Separation
of duties (see Section B.1.4) is one vital control.
Staff
are responsible for acting with propriety in handling official resources and
public funds and for reporting any suspected fraud or suspicious acts to their
line management.
Public
sector procurement staff have access to sensitive information on government
contract prices, product comparisons, product quality and suppliers'
performance. This sensitive
information must not be disclosed without good reason.
Suppliers should feel comfortably assured that the same care is taken
with their information as with the Department’s own. Care should also be taken that information/ideas from one
supplier is not passed on to another.
In
dealing with enquiries from outside the Department for commercially sensitive
information, staff should be guided by the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.
While the presumption of this Code is in favour of disclosure of
information, it has exemptions that allow information to be withheld, among
other reasons, if it is commercially confidential.
Enquiries
from outside the Department for price checking information should
be referred to senior management. However,
if the Department is itself to benefit from price checks it needs to
reciprocate.
The1984
Data Protection Act applies to certain computerised details of suppliers' staff
and individual consultants employed by the Department. Any enquiries from individuals about personal data on such
systems should be referred in the first instance to a Directorate’s Data
Protection Liaison Officer or, alternatively to the Department’s unit
responsible for Data Protection Act compliance.
Staff
who may, in their official capacity, be considered to be in positions of
influencing purchasing decisions should not, in any private capacity such as
community or charity work, directly solicit contributions from suppliers.
Personal
discounts for goods or services from a supplier or potential supplier should not
be accepted if the offer is made because of a business relationship and is not
generally an offer open to all staff or the public.
Samples should be returned to the supplier wherever possible.
DTI’s
name or purchasing facilities must not be used for any buying intended for
personal use.
Procurement
staff should not participate in contests, lotteries or draws if the opportunity
to participate appears to depend on their job responsibility.
For example a golf tournament run by suppliers often has prizes allocated
for the winner with the entrance to the tournament probably based on your
customer status. The prize winners may also receive publicity in the
supplier's house journal and possibly the trade journals.
Best
practice procurement has been developing in recent years away from traditional
adversarial relationships towards partnership working, in which the objective is
to secure best value for the purchaser through the pursuit of the mutual
self-interest of both purchaser and supplier.
Purchasing staff should ensure that close partnering relationships do not
impede proper objectivity in contractual dealings.
The
Department should have the reputation of being a good customer with which
suppliers and potential suppliers are content to deal.
The
services offered by supplier representatives can be of considerable value to the
procurement process in that they provide a source of intelligent information on
the supply market. Staff dealing
with suppliers should interview suppliers' representatives promptly and
courteously.
Casual
enquiries for bids from potential suppliers should be avoided and all requests
should be based on a serious intention to buy something.
The cost to a supplier of putting a bid package together can be extremely
high.
Officials
should do their best in all dealings with suppliers and potential suppliers to:
Suppliers
should, in return, observe similar standards of integrity, professionalism,
cooperation, courtesy, competence and efficiency.
Procurement
staff in any doubt about matters relating to standards of conduct in the
procurement process should consult their line managers.
Further advice can be obtained from the Procurement Policy Unit in FRM or
from HR Directorate.
Under
the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information there is a requirement
to release, in response to specific requests, various information about our
contracts. Failure to comply lays
the Department open to criticism by the Parliamentary Ombudsman.
A prospective Freedom of Information Act will (when enacted) give legal
force to much of what is currently in the Code of Practice.
The
guidance in the following paragraphs of this Manual is intended to supplement
that provided in the Guidance
on Interpretation of the Code of Conduct (the Guidance), which can be accessed through MANDRIN.
Procurement
staff need to be aware of the following parts of the Guidance:
·
Expert
Advice - Part II,
Paragraph 2.19 et. seq.)
·
Publication
and Prematurity in relation to Publication - Part II, Section 10
·
Research,
Statistics and Analysis - Part
II, Section 11.
Two
key general points are:
For
each contract you are required on request to release at least the following
information:
·
the name of
the successful tenderer;
·
the nature
of the job, service or goods to be supplied;
·
the
performance standards set (which should be output based);
·
the
criteria for award of contract; and,
·
the winning
tender price, or range of prices (minimum/maximum) paid.
Where requests for further
information are received it will often be reasonable to disclose after
consideration has been given to the request:
·
the
circumstances surrounding the contract;
·
the nature
of the procurement;
·
the general contract terms and conditions, or sections
of service level agreements;
·
how many tenders were received; and
·
the range of tender bids, where three or more were
received.
However, care must be taken to
ensure that additional information cannot be deduced from that being disclosed.
Also, you should note that whilst commercial best practice welcomes
openness, it also demands some confidentiality to preserve the business
interests of competing companies; and protect the position of the Department in
current or future tendering activities.
Because of the large number of
contracts let by the Department (well in excess of a thousand each year),
irrespective of considerations over confidentiality it would be highly
impracticable and costly to automatically publish the information in every case. Information should therefore be released only on request or
when:
·
there is a
statutory requirement to publish (applicable to procurement under EU
Directives);
·
there is a
public interest factor (for example services to the public); or
·
Ministers
or officials feel that publicity is desirable.
All
cases are, of course, subject to considerations of confidentiality.
The
disclosure of the identity of the successful tenderer and how many tenders were
received should be straightforward. The
response in respect of the basis on which the successful tender was chosen
should be as follows:
“The contract was awarded on the
basis of the lowest price”,
or
“The contract was awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous
tender”
Where
a notice containing the above has been published in the OJEC this should be used
in your response.
The
nature of the job, service or goods supplied is usually set out in the
specification or terms of reference included in the invitation to tender.
It may be convenient to release this information in full or in an
abridged form. Where a contract has
been advertised in the OJEC it may be sufficient to provide the enquirer with a
copy of the notice.
Unpublished
information should only be disclosed after the contract has been awarded.
Subsequent variations to the initial specification that have been
negotiated and incorporated in the contract should not be automatically
revealed. Give careful consideration to the future negotiating position of the
Department and the competitive position of the contractor.
Also, ensure that you have not inadvertently made substantial changes to
a specification that has been let under EU Procurement Directives.
The
main obligation is to disclose the performance standards set.
For services to the public there is also a requirement to be open about
the performance achieved (Guidance
Part IV, Paragraph 5).
There
would appear to be two types of contract to consider when listing and reporting
on performance: those which are
simply concerned with delivery of a product of defined quality to price and
within time-scale, and more service orientated contracts which usually have a
number of detailed targets. Consultancy
studies are usually of the former type, but there are no hard and fast rules.
In
both cases, where a contract has been put out to tender, the performance targets
will be part of the specification or terms of reference and may be embodied in
the main text or placed in a separate document.
It should be a relatively straightforward matter to extract the details.
Again, information should not be released before a contract has been let
and care needs to be taken over targets that have been produced through
negotiation.
Contracts
for supplies and consultancy usually fall into this category.
The
quality of supplies is usually either acceptable or unacceptable.
The quality of a consultancy report is more subjective.
If the Department does not reject a report outright and gets the
contractor to resubmit it and the report is then eventually accepted as the best
that the contractor can produce we could still declare the report as either
satisfactory or unsatisfactory. To
say more than this could create problems where there are no specific targets
since a detailed explanation would be required.
It is expected that few reports would be classed as unsatisfactory.
However, you should note that payment in full for the goods or service
provided indicates satisfaction.
All that is required in these cases is a simple response
in the form of:
"Delivery [was/was not] on
time.
The cost was [less than/equal to/more than] the bid price.
Quality was [unsatisfactory/satisfactory]".
Potential
contractors who object to disclosure of this basic information should not be
awarded contracts.
Where
there are additional performance targets to those mentioned above they will
invariably relate to quality. This
will open up a contractor's performance to even closer scrutiny.
The
Department is expected to release full information on the performance of
in-house service providers, particularly those that are delivering services to
the public, so similar standards should be applied to a contractor providing
similar services. Commercial
confidentiality will in most cases be an unsatisfactory excuse.
When
reporting the performance against the agreed target you should do so in a
factual manner without subjective
interpretation. For example:
“Target - to respond to 95% of
requests for literature within 48 hours
Performance achieved - 85%”
You
must nevertheless exercise care when measuring performance to avoid distortions.
Avoid using the results of a single monitoring exercise and make sure the sample
is representative. Regular
monitoring avoids such problems.
Wherever
possible release details about the contract price. Failing that, at least the price range should be given when
there are more than three bids. Commercial
confidentiality is an acceptable argument in respect of price if a contractor
refuses disclosure. It should also
be noted that the EU accepts commercial confidentiality as a reason for
non-disclosure.
The
argument that disclosure will prejudice future competition is relatively weak.
For goods of readily defined quality the winning price will set a
benchmark that other contractors can beat in subsequent tenders.
However, it can also readily expose a contractor's profit margin in some
cases and the contractor should always be consulted.
For
consultancy or services that are judged on value for money a price is
meaningless out of context as it is only one of several factors used to evaluate
proposals. Whether to disclose or
not is a more difficult decision. However,
where a contractor is content for the price to be disclosed there must be good
reasons why the information should be withheld. In all cases you should try to reach agreement with the
contractor to disclose the information.
If
a service is being provided to the public they are entitled to know the cost of
that service (Guidance
Part II, Paragraph 7.3).
Most
Departmental contracts are based on DTI Form PF31 (Standard Terms and Conditions
of Contract for Services) or Form PF32 (Standard Terms and Conditions of
Contract for Supplies). Copies are
available on the DTI website at http://www.dti.gov.uk/. In other cases,
particularly services that have been market tested under the EU Directive, a
special contract for the work will have been included in the invitation to
tender and, as with specifications, it would be acceptable to release
information about the contract terms and conditions which have been provided to
candidates at the tendering stage and form the basis of the eventual contract or
service level agreement.
However,
do not disclose the actual contract since it will almost certainly include
commercially confidential material such as a contractor's day rates, expenses
and other information that would harm the competitive position of the
contractor. It might also include
material that could prejudice the Department's future negotiation position.
You
may be approached by other Government Departments and possibly outsiders to
provide a reference on the performance of a contractor that you have used.
This is of particular relevance in the case of consultancy contracts and
other major contracts where you should also be seeking references on
performance, from within this and other Departments as well as industry, before
you appoint a contractor. If such checks on suppliers are to work there is an
obligation on us to reciprocate.
Respond
positively, but provide only factual information. The "reference" should follow the suggested formats
for disclosure of performance
referred to
above.
Certain
consultancy reports and studies are likely to attract interest under Open
Government. Plan ahead in such
cases. To alleviate the burden,
consultants can be asked to edit any reports and studies for exemptions at the
outset. In some cases it will be
possible to justify placing any advice or recommendations in a separate report
(marked for internal use only), see the Guidance
Part IV on
Exemption 2. The document, which
only contains the facts, and the analysis of the facts (including conclusions),
must state which exemption was used. For
example:
“Under the Code of Practice on
Access to Government Information, Part II, Exemption 2, the recommendations in
this report have not been disclosed because they are concerned with `internal
opinion, advice, recommendation, consultation and deliberation'.”
If you
require further advice consult your Directorate’s Open Government Liaison
Officer (OGLO) or the Departmental centre of expertise, the Open Government Unit
(OGU) in IMPE.
