“Civil servants will be secretly working on ‘Brexit’ plans but not writing them down to avoid having to reveal them under the Freedom of Information Act, according to a former Cabinet secretary.
Lord O’Donnell of Clapham, who as Gus O’Donnell was Cabinet secretary to three Prime Ministers including David Cameron, said there was a lot of work being done “mentally” by officials on planning how Britain would leave the European Union, a process known as “Brexit”.
However he said that this would was unlikely to be written down to avoid having to disclose the plans to campaigners and journalists.”
The comments are likely to be seized on by transparency campaigners concerned about a Government review which it is feared will curb the extent of FOI.
Just like EDDC’s think tanks, forums, working parties, panels and the like!
East Devon Watch 
1. I would have thought that the “allowing thinking-room” exclusion of draft documents would cover this – so allowing civil servants to write things down now without fear of them coming out before a BREXIT decision is made either way – though of course at a later date these would become available and might prove embarrassing.
2. If civil servants were not planning for that possibility I would be worried – I expect our civil servants to prepare contingency plans for a range of situations, some far less likely than a BREXIT, as we would want to be ready if any of these happened. (Can you tell I was once a boy scout?)
What worries me about this story is that civil servants are bending (if not breaking) the rules (or should that be law?) on the orders of politicians – just because it might be politically embarrassing. Well, the purpose of the FoIA is to allow us to hold politicians to account even (or more likely especially) if the details are embarrassing.
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