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UK government’s ‘Orwellian’ FOI unit interfered in Grenfell fire FOI requests

Exclusive: Cabinet Office’s Clearing House told housing ministry to alter responses to Freedom of Information requests about fatal fire

By Peter Geoghegan and Jenna Corderoy
UK government’s ‘Orwellian’ FOI unit interfered in Grenfell fire FOI requests
The Cabinet Office's Clearing House unit interfered in responses to FOI requests in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy | SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
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The UK government’s controversial Freedom of Information (FOI) screening unit told the housing department to alter responses to requests for information about the Grenfell Tower fire, openDemocracy can reveal.

The Clearing House, a Cabinet Office unit that vets FOI requests from journalists and others, is the subject of two ongoing inquiries. Concerns were previously raised about the extent to which the unit allows the government to coordinate FOI responses.

Now, openDemocracy has found that the secretive unit interfered in responses to FOI requests sent to the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, which claimed 72 lives in 2017.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0