In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) has found that no meetings of the Ministerial Working Group on a Roma Integration Strategy have taken place.
Background information from the Friends, Families and Travellers website:
The European Commission asked all member states to produce a Roma Integration Strategy. The UK Government declined to do this but instead set up a Ministerial Working Group chaired by Eric Pickles MP. That Group published a ‘Progress Report’ in April 2012, but has been notably silent since then.
Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) made a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in November 2013 asking how many meetings of the Group had occurred since April 2012 and how many were currently scheduled to take place. The DCLG declined to provide this information claiming that Ministers needed ‘free space’ and that disclosing information about meetings could harm the ‘frankness and candour of internal discussion’. FFT referred this to the Information Commissioner who directed DCLG to provide the information.
The information was provided to FFT on 29 October [2014] and we now know that no meetings of the so-called ‘Working Group’ have taken place since April 2012 and none are scheduled.
See FFT website for information.
