4thFloor East
Design Centre
39 Corporation Street
Belfast
BT1 3BA
Telephone: 02890 376307
Email:
Your reference: 304144-120e7808
Our reference: DSD 2015-0283
Dear Ms Wright / Date: 03 December 2015
Freedom of Information Act 2000
I am writing to you in connection with a request for information received by the Department under the above legislation on 26 November 2015.You have asked “to be provided with the titles of all / any documents the department holds relating to the introduction of Universal Credit in Northern Ireland”.
I am writing to confirm that the fee charged for finding and retrieving the information you requested is calculated as £57,500 and is above the statutory limit of £ 600.
All documents relating to the introduction of Universal Credit are saved electronically and as the planning for this area commenced in 2011 there are on average 69,000 records currently held by the Universal Credit Programme Team - the above figure does not include those documents held by the many internal stakeholders who are also involved in this area of work.
In order to identify the titles of all / any documents held in relation to the introduction of Universal Credita manual search of the electronic filing system would need to be carried out to ascertain the title of the documents which would need to be recorded. This information would then need to be transcribed into one final document.
When costing this request it has been assumed that the number of electronic records held by the various internal stakeholders is equal to the number of records held by the Programme Team and calculations are as follows:
- manual search of 138,000 records x 1 minute per record = 2,300 hours at an hourly rate of £25.00 = £57,500
Because the statutory limit is exceeded the Department does not have to comply with your request.
The fee is calculated at £25 per hour and covers the time taken to:
- determine whether the Department holds this information;
- locate the information or a document which may contain the information;
- retrieve the information, or a document, which may contain the information; and
- extract the information from a document containing it.
You have the right to request a formal review by the Department within two calendar months of the date of this letter. If you wish to do so, please write to:
The FOI Team, Records Management Branch, Department for Social Development, Fourth Floor, James House (Block D), 2 - 4 Cromac Avenue, Gasworks Business Park, Ormeau Rd, Belfast BT7 2JA.
If after such an internal review you are still dissatisfied with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF, who will undertake an independent review.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely
Trevor Moutray
Universal Credit Programme
4th Floor East
Design Centre
Belfast, BT1 3BA
Tel: 02890 376307
Email: