Asking an Agency for Its File

Decision letters are short and files are long. Almost everything that explains a decision — the internal note, the checklist, the query somebody raised and the answer they received — sits in a file that the agency holds and that can usually be obtained. The difficulty is procedural rather than substantive.

The two routes, and the difference between them

General disclosure. Any person may ask any agency for its records, without giving a reason, and the agency must produce them subject to a defined list of exemptions.

Access by the subject. Where the record is about the requester, a separate and stronger right applies, because the exemption that protects personal privacy does not operate against the person whose privacy it is.

The second usually produces more. Personal information withheld from a general requester is precisely what the subject is entitled to see, and it is usually the part that explains the decision.

They can be made together. Most agencies accept a single request invoking both, and treating it that way avoids a second cycle if one route produces less than expected.

Some agencies have a third route. A dedicated procedure for producing an applicant's own file, faster than either statutory route and used by practitioners in preference to both, particularly where a deadline is running.

Describing what is wanted

A searchable description. The staff member who receives the request has to be able to turn it into a search. A request that cannot be searched is refused as insufficiently specific.

Identify the file. By reference number, applicant name, previous names, date of birth and the period concerned. Every one of those narrows the search and speeds the answer.

Name document types. Notes, checklists, internal correspondence, records of telephone contact and the decision worksheet, because a request for everything is answered with the obvious documents only.

State the period. An open-ended request across the whole life of a file is expensive to answer and will be treated accordingly.

Ask for the search terms used. Some agencies will disclose how they searched, which is the only reliable way to tell whether an incomplete answer reflects an incomplete file or an incomplete search of a complete one.

Fees and timescales

Fee categories exist. Commercial, media, educational and other requesters are charged differently, and stating the category correctly at the outset avoids a dispute later.

Waivers are available. Where disclosure serves a public interest, or where the requester is the subject of the record, fees are frequently waived on request.

Statutory deadlines are routinely missed. The published response period describes an intention rather than a practice, and a request that matters should be made long before it is needed.

Expedited handling exists. Where a genuine urgency can be demonstrated, most schemes provide for it, and the demonstration has to be specific rather than assertive: a hearing date, a statutory deadline, a filing that cannot proceed.

Chase in writing. A dated chaser establishes the sequence and becomes the evidence if the delay itself has to be challenged, and it costs a paragraph rather than an application.

Exemptions, and what they conceal

The agency applies them itself. There is no independent filter at the first stage; the same body that made the decision decides what to withhold about it.

Common grounds. Personal privacy, internal deliberation, law enforcement, and material generated in anticipation of litigation.

Deliberative material is the contested one. Internal advice and recommendations are protected in most schemes, which is unfortunate because that is often the part that explains everything.

Redactions should be marked. A properly redacted page shows where material was removed and cites the exemption relied on, as redactions and what they conceal sets out.

Refusals can be appealed. Internally first in most schemes, then to a court or a commissioner, and the internal appeal succeeds often enough to be worth making.

What the file turns out to be worth

It explains the reasoning. Decision letters state conclusions; files show which document was read, what the reader made of it, and where the reasoning turned.

It shows what was never received. A file with no record of a document that was sent is evidence about the sending, which occasionally matters more than the document did.

It fixes the sequence. Internal date stamps establish when material arrived and when it was considered, which supports arguments about requests for more time.

It identifies people. Names and roles of the staff who actually handled the matter, which is necessary if anybody has to be asked about it later, and which is often the only way to find out who made a decision.

It is evidence in its own right. The file is an agency record, admissible on the same footing as any other public record and not merely a research aid, which is a point discussed in the treatment of routine entries.

The gap between a decision letter and the file behind it is the single most underused source of evidence in administrative matters. Everything that would explain a puzzling outcome is written down somewhere, by somebody who had no expectation that the applicant would read it.

Because the routes differ so much in what they produce, the choice deserves a moment's thought rather than a default. Where the requester is the subject of the record, the subject-access route is almost always the better one and is frequently overlooked in favor of the more famous general right.

Precision is what converts a request into a disclosure. The person answering it is looking for a file, and a request that describes the file gets one; a request that describes a grievance gets a letter asking what documents are actually sought.

Where a refusal arrives, the internal appeal is worth making. It is free, it is decided by somebody other than the original reviewer, and a significant proportion of first-instance exemption claims do not survive it.

Immigration files are the clearest example of the gap between a decision letter and the record behind it, and applicants who obtain their own file frequently find the explanation that the refusal notice never gave. Where a filing has gone wrong and the reason is not apparent, current processing times by form and office can be read alongside the file to work out which requirement was not met.

Finally, the file is evidence and not merely information. Once obtained it can be exhibited, quoted and relied on in the same way as any other record, which is a point that is easy to forget after spending months trying to get it.