Natasha Morgan / Reference: / DDIP/Requests for Information/Joint and Defence
Date: / 26 March 2009
Case Number 04-03-2009-072956-006
Dear Ms Morgan
Release of Information
Thank you for your email of 1 March, received in the MOD on 2 March, in which you requested the following information:
“Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request a list of all meetings between MOD officials and representatives of the Colombian Government in each of the past three years and minutes of those meetings.’’
I can confirm that Ministry of Defence (MOD) officials have routinely met with representatives of the Colombian Government over the past three years in the normal course of their business.
However, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provisions for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit. The limit has been specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. For central government the appropriate limit is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one or more persons spending 3 ½ days working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it. Your request as presently formulated is widely-framed and I estimate that it will take more than 3 ½ working days to locate, retrieve and extract this information. In these circumstances we are not obliged under the Act to comply with your request. You may therefore wish to refine your request to narrow its scope to bring it within the appropriate limit. Should you wish to narrow the scope of your request we will assess the new request and whether it falls with the stipulated limit of £600 to administer.
If you are unhappy with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Director of Information Exploitation, 6th Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail ). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.
If you remain unhappy following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate the case until the internal review process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner’s website, http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Yours Sincerely,
[signed]
Saul Fowler
IPP-OS CISP