civil litigation templates

Summary

The requester sought a list of actively used civil litigation templates, specifically narrowing the scope to employment matters and Microsoft Word formats after an initial clarification request. The Attorney General's Chambers responded by interpreting the request as seeking templates held within their case management system for employment matters, though the provided text cuts off before listing the specific documents.

Key Facts

• The request was initially deemed too broad, prompting a clarification request on 23 July 2024 under Section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015.
• The requester refined the scope to civil litigation employment matters and Microsoft Word templates.
• The authority interpreted the final request as seeking templates held within the case management system for employment matters.
• The response letter is dated 31 July 2024 from the Attorney General's Chambers.
• The outcome is recorded as 'All information sent' with 3 pages and 1 document.

Data Disclosed

• 2024-07-19
• 2024-08-02
• 23 July 2024
• 31 July 2024
• 3 pages
• 1 document
• 20 working days
• 28 days
• 20+ page submissions
• Section 14(1)(a)(i), (2), and (3)
• Section 15
• paragraph 4.4

Original Request

Please itemise each template group with each document template within each template group in civil litigation limited to actively used templates and latest versions to include Microsoft Office and Prescient+ or other relevant systems. For example, a 1 page cover letter, a 4 page template or an 18 page memorandum of understanding with blanks to either manually or automatically include key information.

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Attorney General's Chambers 2nd floor Belgravia House Circular Road, Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 1AE Telephone: (01624) 685452
E-mail: attgen@gov.im

Our ref: 3995233 31 July 2024

Dear ###

We write further to your request which was received on 19 March 2024, which stated:

Please itemise each template group with each document template within each template group in civil litigation limited to actively used templates and latest versions to include Microsoft Office and Prescient+ or other relevant systems.

For example, a 1 page cover letter, a 4 page template or an 18 page memorandum of understanding with blanks to either manually or automatically include key information.

Subsequent to the receipt of this request, on 23 July 2024, we requested that you clarify your request:

The request as submitted, is currently too broad in scope to identify the specific information you are seeking. As such, please can you endeavour to clarify and refine the request. We suggest that you confirm the specific information you are seeking, as the current request merely alludes to the provision of itemised template groups, and templates within such.

Clarification is being requested in line with section 14(1)(a)(i), (2), and (3) of the Freedom of Information Act 2015, and paragraph 4.4 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 - Code of Practice. Please note that you have 28 days to provide such clarification otherwise we may refuse to provide the information, if held; and any time between the request for clarification being issued and the time taken to provide such will be disregarded in determining when the standard processing period of 20 working days ends.

Subsequent to the request for clarification, on 23 July 2024, you responded as follows:

(1) I have already endeavoured to dramatically refine the search from all matters to solely civil litigation matters. I am able to further refine the search to only civil litigation employment matters.

(2) I am able to further refine the search from Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Publisher, Outlook, Sharepoint, etc) and other relevant systems to only Microsoft Word to include Microsoft Word cloud hosted templates for example via Office 365 or in Microsoft One or in Dropbox or on a corporate mobile telephone storage space if an employee only reuses their own templates and similarly to any Adobe Acrobat PDF documents managed in a way as to recycle as a template document if required.

(3) In the meantime, it would be reasonable and helpful to quantify actual or estimated total templates pending meaningful disclosure of exported template documents in Microsoft Word.format with meta data such as author and template created date and number of revisions etc intact.

In line with the section 15 duty to assist: (4) please confirm my understanding that Prescient+ includes system functionality to define templates (5) please confirm that it would then be nonsensical to not use such high productivity functionality in civil litigation case after case with similar layout submissions on same issues with just different names and dates and organisations .... the observational evidence is that 20+ page submissions and/or multiple submissions within short deadlines and subsequent submissions with the same layout prove the existence of such reusable templates (6) please clarify however: (a) if the system only exports a template as a new draft document that only contains manually edited blanks
(b) if the system only exports a template as a new draft document with find replace tags and an employee allocated to a case must manually edit all identical data at the same time such as #COMPLAINANT with a find replace all GRAEME EDWARD JONES and so on (c) if a system template is selected from within a case reference and any such template tags are automatically replaced and exported as a new draft document

In line with the section 15 duty to assist: (7) please clarify that you do not appear to have any computer network directory structure to immediately identify any such Microsoft Word templates

In line with the section 15 duty to assist: (8) please clarify the astounding claim contrary to my extensive previous experience with transparency and legal compliance (setting aside more normal proactive publication) and contrary to the existence of public authority retention schedules and policy development projects that your retention schedule does not immediately identify any such templates and storage locations.

Please find below our response to your request:

Notwithstanding your response to our request for clarification, we remain unclear as to the specific information you are seeking. However, in the interests of discharging our duty to provide reasonable advice and assistance to persons who have made a request for information held by the public authority, under s15 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015, your request has been interpreted as - what template documents are held within the case management system that are regularly used in employment matters - the answer being 1, a basic letterhead template. On occasion we may also use the memo or file note function, but it is not regular and in any event that is only 3 templates.

Please quote the reference number 3995233 in any future communications.

Your right to request a review

If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post.

An electronic version of our complaint form can be found by going to our website at https://services.gov.im/freedom-of-information/Review . If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on; 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.

I will now close your request as of this date.