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Ceri Gibbons Direct Line +44 (0)207 798 7264 [email protected] Email [email protected]
Date 7 November 2019
Dear Ceri Gibbons FOI REQUEST: SAUDI ARABIAN ARMED FORCES PROJECT
Thank you for your email of 10 October 2019 requesting a review of our response to your Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) request of 7 August 2019. We responded to your initial request on 3 September 2019, informing you that we did not hold copies of the information you requested. In your review request you asked us to review our search terms and provide some more explanation as to why the report 'The Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Project Report by the Comptroller & Auditor General - NAO February 1997’ could not be found. Your initial request and your review request are shown in Annex A. We asked a National Audit Office Director with no involvement in your previous request to review our response. Following the review, the Director confirmed that it was reasonable to search for the document using the report title or subsets of the title as your initial request identified a specific document title. However, they asked us to reconsider our searches and asked us to include other search terms. With regard to electronic information, in addition to searching for ‘Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Project’ we have now also searched using the term ‘Saudi Arabian’ and ‘Saudi Arabia’. And while we did not mention it in our earlier reply, given the reference in the newspaper article to ‘Al-Yamamah’, we also searched under that term. These searches did not return the document nor any drafts you requested. Regarding hard copies. We asked our defence team to search again any relevant file areas relating to Saudi Arabia and Al-Yamamah. Again, neither the requested report nor any drafts can be found. It may help you understand why we do not hold these documents if I explain that all our information is subject to retention periods where we destroy information when there is no longer a business need to retain it. Our audit work is subject to a 6 year retention period and given the age of these documents it is likely they were destroyed some time ago in line with our retention periods. I hope you find this response helpful in explaining our position. However, if you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
Philip Taylor Head of FoI and correspondence
157-197 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, London SW1W 9SP 020 7798 7000 www.nao.org.uk Cert No. 8835 ISO 14001
Annex A
Review request – 10 October 2019
Dear National Audit Office, Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews. I am writing to request an internal review of National Audit Office's handling of my FOI request 'The Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Project Report by the Comptroller & Auditor General - NAO February 1997'. Please review your search terms and provide some more explanation as to why this report cannot be found
Original Request - 7 August 2019
Dear National Audit Office, Freedom of Information Act 2000 Please provide the following information 1. "The Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Project Report by the Comptroller & Auditor General - NAO February 1997" 2. "last version of Draft Audit Findings - October 1997" 3. "Revised version - 31 March 1998" 4. "Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley, Chief of Defence Procurement to C&AG [NAO head Sir John Bourn] responding to recommendations in draft audit findings - 30 March 1998" as identified in a list released under FOIA in 2006 here
Second secret report on Saudi deal Christopher Hope, Industry Editor Daily Telegraph 12:01AM BST 07 Jul 2006 https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Ffinance%2F29 42782%2FSecond-secret-report-on-Saudi- deal.html&data=02%7C01%7CFOI.Requests%40nao.org.uk%7Ca3449c45ebf74375a37108d71b501fb4 %7Ce569c7b06dfc42b89b6a2cfc414d4f8c%7C0%7C0%7C637007903255748872&sdata=fWyej7YjAiblk 9enxIicmkE1C8Bhx4I8JKE0iEXZYrw%3D&reserved=0
Yours faithfully,
Ceri Gibbons
...
Second secret report on Saudi deal Christopher Hope, Industry Editor Daily Telegraph 12:01AM BST 07 Jul 2006
The Government's spending watchdog drew up a second secret report into a £20bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia and kept it hidden from MPs. The news will increase further the pressure on the National Audit Office to justify the secrecy surrounding reports it holds on the Al-Yamamah arms-for-oil deal, originally agreed in 1985. A list of documents held by the NAO in relation to the arms deal shows that the NAO carried out a second report into the deal in 1997. One entry reveals a document described as "The Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Project Report by the Comptroller & Auditor General - NAO February 1997". The list reveals two other versions exist of the same report - one described as "last version of Draft Audit Findings - October 1997" and another called "Revised version - 31 March 1998". The list, released under the Freedom of Information Act and seen by The Daily Telegraph, also suggests the Ministry of Defence was aware of this second study. One entry is described as a "Letter from Sir Robert Walmsley, Chief of Defence Procurement to C&AG [NAO head Sir John Bourn] responding to recommendations in draft audit findings - 30 March 1998". Normally, every NAO report is presented to Parliament and considered by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee. However it emerged yesterday the committee has no knowledge of the existence of a 1997 NAO report into the deal. Nick Wright, the committee's clerk, said: "I am not aware of any such memo nor of one presented to the committee at that time. We did not receive a report like that in 1997 and 1998." The NAO produces 55 reports a year, which are considered by the MPs on the committee on behalf of Parliament. The NAO said this second report would not be released on the grounds of "international relations" and "the economy". A spokesman said: "This report is not disclosable under FOI." He declined to explain why the report was never presented to MPs in Parliament. Last night John Pugh (LibDem, Southport), a member of the committee, said he would be raising the issue of why the report was kept from MPs with the committee's chairman Edward Leigh MP at the next meeting. The only other unpublished NAO report was a 1992 study into the deal, which was suppressed by Robert (now Lord) Sheldon MP, then-committee chairman and Sir Michael Shaw, deputy chairman. At the time Mr Sheldon said: "I have found no evidence of fraud or corruption.'' This NAO study was compiled between 1989 and 1991 after claims that millions of pounds were paid to middle-men. Serious Fraud Office investigators have asked the NAO for a copy. They are investigating claims that bribes were paid by firms used by defence group BAE Systems. BAE has said it is co-operating fully with the investigation. The Government has blocked FOI requests to release the report. NAO documents from 2003 seen by The Daily Telegraph showed officials believed parliamentary protection "might be hard to sustain''. The committee's MPs met last week to reconsider pushing for the 1992 report to be released. Mr Leigh later said in a statement that he stood by his predecessor's decision. The committee had no powers to release the report because the decision to suppress it was made by a previous parliament and it "can only be released on a resolution of the House''.
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