A Maintenance Control Supervisor reports he had deferred three maintenance items on a Hawker-800 (BAe-125-800) aircraft after he was informed their MEL Manual had been approved. He later found out the information was incorrect.

Narrative

December 2011. Our Hawker 800 (BAe 125-800) aircraft had several crew write-ups. The aircraft was needed for some flights. An MEL was provided to Maintenance Control; but to my knowledge was not approved by the FAA yet. I told Ms. X that we would not be able to make our flights; and she called Mr. Z to inform him that we had open [logbook] write-ups. Mr. Z said that we don't have an approved MEL and the airplane would have to be repaired.A little while later Ms. X came to me and said that Mr. Z had told her the MEL had been signed by the FAA and the copy. The MEL that was provided to Maintenance Control; (my desk); is a copy of the MEL that was submitted to the FAA. I proceeded to instruct our Vendor to make three deferrals. One for a windshield overheat; one for an intermittent upwash light; and a Non-Essential Function (NEF) deferral for a missing vent knob in the cockpit. The aircraft was released with items on deferral.I was [later] told by Ms. X [the next week]; that the MEL was not approved. I was told that the MEL had been signed by the FAA; and it was not yet loaded into Q-pulse. I did not have any way to verify that it had been signed. No action was needed other than reporting to my supervisors what had happened; because the deferred items had already been repaired. Suggest that signed documentation should be provided to Maintenance Control and Field Service for any FAA approved documentation; and things like this should not be passed around by word of mouth. I will ensure I verify documentation first hand in the future and not take people's word for it.