If the Home Office is still not honouring your FOI requests you should raise this urgently with the MP for the constituency where I believe you have indicated you are still on the electoral role.

If an MP writes to them to complain about your FOI request not being honoured this is sure to be dealt with at a very high level.

Home Office/IND timeline

November 27, 2004 Informal request for geographic number to enable access from overseas
November 29, 2004 Home Office (HO) acknowledgement of above request but no other response
January 27, 2005 Second informal request for geographic number
February 1, 2005 FOI request made for, inter alia, geographic number
February 4, 2005 Request for an acknowledgement of my FOI request
February 9, 2005 Second request for an acknowledgement of my FOI request
March 1, 2005 Message sent to HO stating that the twenty day response requirement had not been met
March 2, 2005 First response from HO stating inability to comply with twenty day limit
March 2, 2005 My response to the above
March 3, 2005 Reply from the HO apologizing for the delay
April 5, 2005 Complaint sent to HO regarding no response
April 5, 2005 Reply from HO - looking into matter
May 10, 2005 Further complaint about the time being taken
May 11, 2005 Reply from HO - looking into matter
May 11, 2005 FOI response provided
May 11, 2005 My request for internal review due to avoidance of answering original questions
May 11, 2005 HO acknowledgement of internal review request
May 13, 2005 Another HO acknowledgement of internal review request
May 13, 2005 Further arguments from myself relevant to request
June 20, 2005 Further submissions from myself (Ofcom's FOI statement on international originated calls)
July 7, 2005 Reply from HO extending deadline to August 7
July 27, 2005 Reply from HO extending deadline to August 26
July 27, 2005 My response indicating unacceptable delay

Quote:

Its hard to be sure if the delay results from total incompetence or is because your requests have provoked a furious debate in the Home Office between those for and against releasing geographical alternatives to 0870 numbers.  I still suspect that waiting for the Ofcom statement on the matter before deciding what they do is the most likely scenario.

Surely if there is an initial deadline under FOI for response then just writing saying they couldn't hit that deadline is not enough.  Surely they must state the exceptional circumstances that mean they cannot comply and what is their new intended compliance date with your request.

Quote:


Have you tried to get a journalist for a national newspaper to cover these delaying tactics by the Home Office?  That ought to embarass them into some action.

Quote:
Unfortunately, as we've already seen, many journalists cannot understand the NGN issue and publish inaccuracies. Probably pointless pursuing this angle.

Quote:


I don't agree with you.

A whole load of people I know who just didn't take the issue seriously before or understand it properly are now beginning to both understand the issue and take me more seriously on it following the coverage by national newspaper journalists of the Police 0870 casualty line scam and now the Patientline scam.

It is only if enough public anger can be accumulated in the next few weeks that Ofcom and the government can be embarassed into abolishing all 084/7 revenue sharing and forcing the scammers to retreat to 09 where they belong.  And because the scam is now exposed and because of all the embrassing FOI requests they have been getting lately (answer them or not they know they are doing something wrong when they start to get these) most companies won't dare to go down that route again.  Obviously Easyjet will but they are basically saying that if you don't have web access then you don't count.

Quote:
Whilst public and media awareness is becoming more apparent, it still has a long way to go. These numbers are now so prevalent that people just accept that they are going to have to pay a premium to call. Of course the publicity given to the idiotic use after the explosions in London is beneficial to the campaign, but this scam needs a high profile exposure even though some well-meaning journalists and others have skirted the edges. So far, the high-level exposure hasn't happened. So many people have their fingers in the proverbial NGN pie that it may be hard to break the stranglehold that the scammers have. The only hope, sadly, is with Ofcom, however their fingers are firmly entrenched elsewhere.

Quote:

I feel sure you will be chasing them up over this until they comply?  Just remind them that they are otherwise making it impossible for you or anyone else in the USA to call.