date: Wed Aug 5 16:58:21 2009 from: Phil Jones subject: My earlier comments to: matthew.hume@uea.ac.uk Hi Matt, My comments were tongue in cheek! The agreements that we're talking about are not really confidentiality agreements that you're talking about. Lots are unwritten agreements that we make scientist to scientist. Where there are written agreements they are signed between me (or previous Director's of CRU) with other academic institutions, which were not with their central administration (but again a sub part). CRU doesn't initiate these, but if the other side wants it and it will help us do some work then we go ahead and sign. There is never any obligation on CRU or UEA. They are generally about agreeing to work together on something. The agreements Dave is talking about are ones that relate to us not making climate data available to third parties, which we have got from a National Met Service. FOI is causing us a lot of problems in CRU and even more for Dave, as he has to respond to them all. It would be good if UEA went along with any other Universities who might be lobbying to remove academic research activities from FOI. FOI is having an impact on my research productivity. I also write references for people leaving CRU, students and others. If I have to write a poor one, I make sure I get the truth to the recipient in a phone call. I'm also much less helpful responding to members of the public who email CRU regularly than I was 2-3 years ago. I've seen some of what I considered private and frank emails appear on websites. Issue here is blogsites have allowed these climate change deniers to find one another around the world. Cheers Phil From: "Palmer Dave Mr (LIB)" To: "Jones Philip Prof (ENV)" , "Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD)" , "Mcgarvie Michael Mr (ACAD)" , "Ogden Annie Ms (MAC)" Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 15:32:05 +0100 Subject: FW: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Thread-Topic: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Thread-Index: AcoVvf08n/gEgJXORxOdPEoiA9w3TgAFFk3wAABnriAAAPaKIAAAOeMg Accept-Language: en-US, en-GB X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: acceptlanguage: en-US, en-GB X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Aug 2009 14:32:07.0233 (UTC) FILETIME=[82575B10:01CA15D9] Folks, In response to one of Phil's earlier emails regarding any policies regarding entering into confidentiality agreements etc, I sent a query to REE to determine what relevant information they might have... and received the below response to which I have responded as you can see... This does present something of a 'issue' in terms of drafting a response and dealing with any potential follow up request/query regarding our practices in this regard. I wonder if whether said policy was in force at the time the agreements were entered into would be a way around this... the request is for current policies clearly.... I will enquire further with Matt Hume.... Cheers, Dave ___________________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 3:23 PM To: Hume Matthew Mr (ACAD) Cc: Walker Alan Dr (ACAD) Subject: RE: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Matt, Thanks very much for this... You have given me a bit of a conundrum on how to respond but we do at least have something to work with.... What policy are you actually quoting from and is it publicly available? As the request was for the entire policy, is there any issue with making the policy publicly available? If the policy in regards confidentiality agreements is within a larger document with unrelated material, I am happy to quote but I do think we will need to provide a proper citation... Cheers, Dave _______________________________________________________________________________ From: Hume Matthew Mr (ACAD) Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 3:16 PM To: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Cc: Walker Alan Dr (ACAD) Subject: RE: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Hi Dave, We all just had a very good laugh at Phil's comment "We do sometime ignore the Registry advice"... If this is going to have the kind of publicity that you suggest, I would prefer if you do not quote ANY of his answer to question 1. The UEA actually has a very strict policy on entering into confidentiality agreements, however as Phil so blithely admits, a handful of academics take it upon themselves to foul things up! As you will note from points 1 & 2 of our policy; no UEA employee, except members of our office, has the right to sign anything on behalf of the university - the problem is that funders/other parties can be sneaky by sending the agreement in the name of the academic. Our policy is:- Someone from the Commercialisation & Enterprise Team should approve and sign all Confidentiality Agreements: only our staff have the legal authority to sign agreements on behalf of the University all agreements should be between the University of East Anglia and the party requesting the agreement (not an individual academic or school) we will negotiate with the other party on any issues within the document that may be contentious by doing this we will ensure you the best protection of your IP rights (In special circumstances, authorisation may be obtained from the Commercialisation & Enterprise Team allowing you to sign the agreement yourself. Such authorisation must always be obtained in advance, will only be valid for a specific instance, and the standard university agreement must be used without amendment - unless we have authorised an amendment) In all cases, a copy of the fully signed confidentiality agreement must be retained in our office. FYI - we are currently finishing off the final touches to our new intranet pages - there will be a page on CDA's with this info on it. Also, I am away on holiday next week (10th -14th), so if you do any more info on our policy regarding agreements etc, please contact Anne Donaldson, one of our Commercialisation Managers ([1]a.donaldson@uea.ac.uk). Thanks Matt. _________________________________________________________________________ From: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 2:47 PM To: Hume Matthew Mr (ACAD) Cc: Walker Alan Dr (ACAD) Subject: FW: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Importance: High Matt, Please note Phil Jones' response to question 1 below - would REE have anything that would be relevant to this request? A bit of context - in response to a rejection of a request for data, we have received over 50 requests for agreements, data and a combination thereof in relation to data sets that CRU maintains/holds. This is pretty high profile and has been noted in blogs in the Guardian and Telegraph as well as in the source of all of this (see: [2]http://www.climateaudit.org). Be assure that whatever we state in response to this request is likely to be on the web, shared and very public within hours of sending.... We have a request from another individual exactly the same as below so there will be multiple recipients of the answer we give. Our deadline for a response is 21 August but as I'm on hols commencing 17 August, the 'effective' deadline is 14 August. Cheers, Dave _________________________________________________________________________ From: Phil Jones [[3]mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 12:15 PM To: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB); Colam-French Jonathan Mr (ISD); Ogden Annie Ms (MAC); Mee Andrew Mr (CSED) Cc: Whitehead Steve Mr (FIN) Subject: Re: FW: FOI/EIR request [FOI_09-69] Dave, A few responses inline Cheers Phil At 11:52 05/08/2009, Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) wrote: Folks, The next 'other' request relating the the CRU agreements & data. The first part of the query will be answered in line with the answer given to other requesters for the agreements. In regards the second part, I will need some assistance as noted below 1. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding entering into confidentiality agreements. Steve, do we have any contracting policy on this? Phil - anything with CRU on responsibilities regarding entering agreements on behalf of CRU? I don't think we wish to state that we don't have any policies or procedures in place, but I'm not sure what to actually put here... I don't think there is anything - if there is I've never seen it. People in CRU (not just me) enter into agreements about data and/or writing papers and getting involved in projects. UEA signs research contracts for us. UEA employees do the work, but UEA administers the grant. The various agreements that UEA signs may say things about data access, but it will vary depending on the funding body. Some are more stringent than others. The Registry goes through these. They mostly help the researchers by not letting ourselves sign away any rights and IPR. We do sometime ignore the Registry advice, preferring to fall back on the verbal agreements we have with the funders (their project officer). If we ever have a problem, we probably wouldn't work with them again. This has happened with some scientists I have collaborated with in the past. 2. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding the preservation of written agreements. Ah, records management rears its head.We have a general statement on our website regarding our responsibilities for RM but we do lack any overarching records retention schedule or policy Phil, does CRU have anything in-house? CRU has nothing in this regard. 3. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employees entering into verbal agreements. See question 1; same issue here although more likely to have a nil response here consequences of that? As said in the 2 pager we're working on, we put some of the agreements in the letters we wrote to Met Services requesting data (some of which we paid for). There has been a lot of time and effort gone into making these contacts. It seems as though this counts for nothing. Again - unlikely to be anything. People agree things with other academics at meetings. This is how science works. 4. A copy of instructions to staff regarding compliance with FOI requests. We have web guidance that can be referred to, and a brochure that I distribute that could go here. and a statement regarding the training on offer I'm not sure you want to go down this route! Cheers, Dave _________________________________________________________________________ From: steven mosher [ [4]mailto:moshersteven@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 8:16 PM To: Palmer Dave Mr (LIB) Subject: FOI/EIR request Dear Mr. Palmer: Pursuant to the Environmental Information Regulations, I hereby request the following information in respect to any confidentiality agreements affecting CRUTEM station data involving station data in NIGERIA, NETHERLANDS, NORWAY, NEPAL,NAURU 1. the date of such agreement; 2. the parties to the agreement; 3. a copy of that part of the agreement that prevents further transmission of the data to non-academics or others 4. a copy of the entire agreement In addition, I hereby request the following information: 1. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding entering into confidentiality agreements. 2. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employee responsibilities regarding the preservation of written agreements. 3. A copy of policies and procedures regarding employees entering into verbal agreements. 4. A copy of instructions to staff regarding compliance with FOI requests. I am requesting this information as part of my academic research. Thank you for your attention, Steven M. Mosher Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Phil Jones Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0) 1603 592090 School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0) 1603 507784 University of East Anglia Norwich Email p.jones@uea.ac.uk NR4 7TJ UK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------