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IPCO Annual Report 2018
Q4: The number of times a case considered under the Guidance was referred to a Minister,
for each agency, and the number of subsequent Ministerial authorisations, in respect of
each agency
This question takes a simplistic view of the authorisation process which would not be borne
out through the provision of statistics. In many cases, submissions to a Minister will refer to
a programme of work and these may be supplementary to, or combined with, a section 7
authorisation. On selection, we are provided with details on which casework has been referred
to a Minister for a decision, and which relate to an existing section 7 submission. In many cases,
the submission will be made by SIS, or in tandem by SIS and the MOD such that both Ministers
are consulted before action is taken.
IPCO has not, to date, collected figures centrally for this. This reflects the risk-based approach to
Consolidated Guidance oversight, which examines submissions to Ministers in the wider context
of operational activity and decision making both in country and in the UK. As we discuss the
implementation of The Principles, we will consider whether it would be useful to collect these
figures. However, we believe that absent detail of the relevant casework, these statistics would
not enable members of the public to improve their understanding of HMG’s work in this area.
Q5: The number of assurances sourced and received from liaison services, in respect of
each agency
We have reconsidered our position in relation to the collection of statistics on assurances and
wrote to the ISC in 2019 to clarify that we did not intend to collect or publish details of written
and verbal assurances.
Our rationale for this change was based on the following: assurances (whether written or
verbal) provided to UKIC by a liaison service are regularly revisited and refreshed. In some
cases, UKIC may ‘re-invoke’ verbal assurances with a liaison partner in advance of any operation
involving a detention. In others, written assurance may remain in place, unchanged, with a
liaison partner for a number of years, save that they are re-sent to relevant senior personnel
as their roles change. The existence of assurances is not an automatic ‘green light’ to progress;
rather, the decision to proceed with an operation depends on the considered judgement of
officers working with liaison.
Collating the total number of verbal and written assurances UKIC has in place during any given
year is not a meaningful measure of UKIC’s reliance on assurances as a means of mitigating
detainee-related risks. If, as a hypothetical example, SIS involved verbal assurances with a
specific liaison ten times in a given year because of a spike in operational activity, including this
in an overall figure would risk giving the misleading impression that SIS’s reliance on assurance
and/or the number of liaisons with whom the operative might have increased, when in fact
that was not the case. Furthermore, UKIC have been clear that disclosing the existence of
specific liaison relationships would damage national security; this means that it is not possible
to publish a statistic which can be broken down to show the extent of UKIC’s use of assurances
with particular liaison partners.