Correspondence between outside parties such as Charities and other bodies is received, logged and disseminated to the relevant recipients

Our Ref: FOI 15-22

18 March 2022

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”)

I am writing to confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) has processed your request dated 15 February 2022 in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOIA). In your request, you asked:

“Can you tell me how correspondence between outside parties such as Charities and other bodies is received, logged and disseminated to the relevant recipients? What is your internal process for doing this?”

The Assembly Commission does not hold information as requested under the FOIA.

Incoming mail received by post is delivered directly to any named individual or business area by Assembly Commission staff. Electronic mail that is sent to named individuals is received by the individual.

Correspondence received for the attention of Assembly committees, either in hard copy or electronically, is recorded by the committee office and provided to the relevant committee for consideration at a future meeting. Outgoing correspondence from a committee to government departments, stakeholder organisations and members of the public is recorded for administrative purposes.

You have the right to request a formal review by the Assembly Commission and if you wish to do so, please write to me at the above address. If after such an internal review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF who will undertake an independent review.

The Assembly Commission may publish details of your FOI request and our official response within the organisational disclosure log. The request will be completely anonymised and you will not be identified in any way. This is to meet the requirements as laid out by in the agreed publication scheme with the Information Commissioners’ Office.

Yours sincerely

INFORMATION STANDARDS