§ Mr. ByersTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many files marked "Not for National Audit Office Eyes" are currently held by his Department. [24845]
554W
§ Mr. BoswellThe marking "Not for NAO Eyes" is used in accordance with an agreement between the Treasury and the National Audit Office, under which current documents relating to the handling of relations between Departments and the NAO are not automatically available to the NAO. The use of the marking is strictly controlled and is removed from files as soon as the subject matter is no longer current.
There are unlikely to be a great number of files with this marking but the Department does not have a centralised registry system and to collect this information from the large number of individuals registries would be disproportionately expensive.