863 (Thurston) Squadron

The FoI act is a multi headed being with a wide scope of things that it can do. It can gain information that would have been left dormant for years.  It can also help give comfort to people and reassurance on things that have happened. This is something about comfort and things that have happened.

Whilst browsing through the pile, notices something about 863 (Thurston) Squadron.  I thought that it could have been something about a cold war squadron or something that like. Again, put it away for a rainy day.  Then I started to look into it. The request ask for:

All internal and external emails regarding 863 (Thurston) Squadron from 1st January 2011 - present

Why?  Because someone was suspended over a dispute that happened in their organisation. You see, this is an Air Cadet Squadron.  It has to do with differences between the staff and the volunteers. Interesting stuff eh?  So let's dig a little deeper on this one. There was a massive problem with the volunteers and how they were acting (There is more to it than this but you can read that from the link above.

Now the first response on the request basically states that it is too broad for anything. So they refined it.  Then it was rejected again.  The reason was because of two reasons.  The first being that it held details of individual, and would therefore be breaking the Data Protection Act (DPA). The second is that it is still in legal dispute.  Which again is fair enough when you get down to it. Think about it, if the facts are in dispute, would you want them being given to anyone?  I doubt it.

The good thing is that B Williams DIDN'T stop with this.  He kept on going. He kept on digging. The thing is he kept asking the question “When will these issues be resolved”, “what is holding things up?”.  The work then paid off.

If you look towards the bottom of the request you find some of the emails (redacted) that have been found on these matters. The person found the information that he was looking for on this matter. He got a lot of information from this issue.

Now I don't know what information he was looking for and I don't know how they used it.  What I do know is that they got what they were looking for and it has given them some comfort.  They were able to find out what the government was actually looking at and what this department had been thinking about.  Shows that the FOI was used here to shine a light on a  very serious matter that affected a number of people. Hopefully this has helped somewhat in this matter.