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Cabinet Office freedom of information request #1
This request asked for information about the drafting process between 10 and 16 September drafts, including the missing 15 September draft. The request noted that when circulating a draft on 16 September, Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett had referred in a covering note to a section (Part 2, Chapter 2) that did not appear in the draft that the government identified as having been produced that day.
On 1 September 2008 the Information Commissioner ordered the Cabinet Office to release most of the comments.
Withheld information
The Cabinet Office has admitted that it "holds information which relates to the drafting process" during this time but refused to release it, citing Sections 36 (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs) and 27 (international relations) of the Freedom of Information Act. It has denied that there was a draft on 15 September, claiming that the reference in Scarlett's note was "an error".
Following a complaint to the Information Commissioner, the Cabinet Office applied the Section 24 (national security) exemption to the information.
The disclosure that the government retains undisclosed information from the period 11-16 September is very significant. The Hutton Inquiry website contains only two documents from this period. It was during this period that the dossier's executive summary was reworked so that claims that had been cited as "recent intelligence indicates" became "judgements".
Cabinet Office freedom of information request #5 was an attempt to establish what information was held.