IPCO Annual Report 2017
applications in the United States Intelligence and Surveillance Court (FISA) can easily run to
50 or more pages. Applications under the Act will rarely be more than 10. Throughout this
extensive period of change, and with significantly less than a full complement, the inspectors
have been working extremely hard to deliver reports that are uniformly of an exceptionally
high standard. I am grateful for their dedication and commitment.
2.12
Although they have been recruited and appointed, the engagement team is not yet in place
(see the section on resources below). Nonetheless, we have done all we can to engage with
our external stakeholders, and in particular we have liaised with a number of NGOs and
some academics. These discussions with civil society have been notably instructive, and they
have contributed to the approach IPCO adopts when scrutinising the Government’s activity.
For obvious security reasons it will not always be possible for members of civil society to be
briefed in full (or, on occasion, at all) on the Government’s capabilities and operations, but it
is my ambition that IPCO will act as a bridge, ensuring that valid concerns can be highlighted
for the officers and analysts conducting intrusive activity.
2.13
We are also working closely with a number of foreign oversight bodies. We want to
understand how they handle similar challenges and to explore with them whether there are
any areas in which we can properly provide joint oversight. We have extensively shared ideas
with a number of external oversight bodies, and I would especially like to thank Canada, the
USA, the Netherlands, Germany and France who hosted me or other representatives of IPCO
during 2017. In a similar vein, we have arranged meetings at our London office for visiting
representatives of external oversight bodies.
2.14
We have appointed the Chair of the Technology Advisory Panel and our Standing Counsel:
respectively, Professor Sir Bernard Silverman and Tom Hickman. I consider it critical that the
Commissioners and inspectors have comprehensive technical and legal support, in what can
be a very challenging, specialised and complex area. Over the next year, Sir Bernard and I
may appoint additional panel members to the TAP, which has already provided invaluable
assistance to the Commissioners and the inspectors. I pay tribute to Tom Hickman for the
varied and high quality advice he has given the organisation, often at very short notice.
2.15
The small and, I strongly suspect, significantly under-resourced legal and policy team has
produced a wealth of first-rate reports and advice on a broad range of issues, and I have
been struck at the extent to which this industrious body of people has managed to cover
so much ground.
2.16
Finally, the secretariat and review teams have been highly efficient during our first year.
They have successfully set up our new offices; they have run dozens of recruitment
competitions, resulting in hundreds of applicants; and they have supported the entire
organisation during this period of development and change, notwithstanding long periods
of being significantly under resourced. I cannot sufficiently express my thanks for the
excellent assistance I have received.
Resources
2.17
Predicting the right structure and headcount for a new organisation is always likely to be
difficult. This has been a particularly vexed question for IPCO given the new responsibilities
with which we have been entrusted, in addition to the existing work of our precursor
organisations. I am reasonably confident that we have identified right number of Judicial
Commissioners (16 including myself). However, only time will tell whether we have accurately
predicted the correct number of inspectors and other members of staff who are critical
to ensuring IPCO fulfils Parliament’s ambitions, as reflected in the IPA. Whilst I appreciate
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