How Much Should the Public be Allowed to Know?

[Messyshaw]

I know there are serving and retired senior managers, NILOs & tactical advisors and a range of others with a huge cumulative experience on here. So a question for everyone on how much the UKFRS should let the public know.

Some guy requested (under the Freedom of Information Act - FOI) a list of pre determined attendances (PDAS) from Hampshire Fire & Rescue.

HFRS complied by publishing a 29 page list detailing PDAs to a large number of incidents, including on military premises 

Hampshire PDA list 

The same guy asked London for the same information and was refused on the grounds of National Security - the LFB's view being that some PDA information could help those who are attack planning

The guy requesting the information appealed that decision. He agreed some PDAs - such as bomb attendances - should be redacted, but he could see how a chimney PDA could be helpful to any criminals. But again the LFB refused

London's refusal 

So who is right?

Is this low risk information that should be freely published - as done so by Hampshire?

Or are the LFB right, and any PDA information could be useful to criminals or terrorists?

I do feel that they are both wrong. Hampshire should have redacted any PDA info to MoD sites and London shouldn't be so bloody jobsworth and publish non sensitive info

What does seems obvious is perhaps that the Home Office should mandate some common standard here in relation to FOI requests

[Jet]

A lot of sensitive premises are covered by the Serious And Organised Crime And Police Act (2005) which will cover a lot of premises outside of London such as Windsor Castle. You could easily exclude these from FOI requests. 

[Noddy]

Why did this guy want to know Messy? 

[Kinmel]

I think Hampshire's published PDA list is generic enough to meet the FOI request, specifics are on the  "Guidance Page" which was not provided.

[Dyson]

I don’t think members of the public should have details of appliance movements, particularly those in central London. This information could be used to to disrupt attendances at terrorist or similar events. Same goes for anywhere else where the risk of such an event is routinely high.  

[Messyshaw]

11 hours ago, Noddy said:

Why did this guy want to know Messy? 

I have no idea.

He is either a fire service anorak, a would be recruit, or one of growing band of wrong-uns who feel it's necessary to test organisations FOI policies 🤔

 

[Steve]

I can't help but see this an an aggravating factor from someone who has no real constructive objective. What is published in the IRMP should be enough (attendance times and weight of attack) as anything beyond that is only of tactical or command relevance and also related to availability of resources, national standards, relative risk etc. Although I was a NILO and still have some input on National training, I have never been an advocate of the 'secret squirrel' elitist view held by some NILO's, which is more about Ego's and point scoring than any actual threat. That said, I do think information like PDA's could be used for a variety of mischievous or even down right brutal murderous reasons and therefore anything beyond the basics is a no from me. 

[Noddy]

On 26/10/2021 at 18:44, Messyshaw said:

I have no idea.

He is either a fire service anorak, a would be recruit, or one of growing band of wrong-uns who feel it's necessary to test organisations FOI policies 🤔

Then I’d say unless there’s a compelling reason to know, I’d reject the request.  

[Br9mp81]

On 25/10/2021 at 23:45, Messyshaw said:

I know there are serving and retired senior managers, NILOs & tactical advisors and a range of others with a huge cumulative experience on here. So a question for everyone on how much the UKFRS should let the public know.

Some guy requested (under the Freedom of Information Act - FOI) a list of pre determined attendances (PDAS) from Hampshire Fire & Rescue.

HFRS complied by publishing a 29 page list detailing PDAs to a large number of incidents, including on military premises 

Hampshire PDA list 

The same guy asked London for the same information and was refused on the grounds of National Security - the LFB's view being that some PDA information could help those who are attack planning

The guy requesting the information appealed that decision. He agreed some PDAs - such as bomb attendances - should be redacted, but he could see how a chimney PDA could be helpful to any criminals. But again the LFB refused

London's refusal 

So who is right?

Is this low risk information that should be freely published - as done so by Hampshire?

Or are the LFB right, and any PDA information could be useful to criminals or terrorists?

I do feel that they are both wrong. Hampshire should have redacted any PDA info to MoD sites and London shouldn't be so bloody jobsworth and publish non sensitive info

What does seems obvious is perhaps that the Home Office should mandate some common standard here in relation to FOI requests

If you can give Crapita that information to make profit i cannot see why spotters cannot have it

 

[Supernova9]

Let’s not forget that certain people have been known to target first responders, through the use of secondary devices or targetting RVPs. I don’t feel that information that assists those sort of people in potentially engineering a large turnout to harm responders is a good thing.

I haven’t seen anything in this thread that suggests any good reason for making the information available that would outweigh that risk?