Skill: information requests that get answers
Use when: drafting a Freedom of Information, Environmental Information or subject-access request, a chaser, an internal review or a complaint.
- Read the whole thread, sent and received, and the body's dartboard lane. The next step must be the one that body's route allows at that date.
- Search sent and draft mail for the same body and the same question. Never re-ask what is pending; one email per body per day.
- Name the record precisely: series, reference, date range, the words it would contain (for example the house name in every spelling, the company names, the title numbers, the events of the year).
- Pre-empt the three replies: the hostile one, the obtuse gatekeeper, and the paywall or other excuse — then sweep for a fourth excuse.
- Ask for routes that cost nothing: inspection, electronic copies, narrowing to stay inside cost limits, the duty to advise and assist.
- When a body answers "not held", check what it searched: which systems, which dates, which terms. Missing search terms are grounds for an internal review; a refused review goes to the Information Commissioner.
- Draft only. The draft goes through the hive; the project lead sends.
Raw Markdown: information-requests.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json