Direct Communications Unit
2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF
Switchboard 020 7035 4848 Fax: 020 7035 4745 Textphone: 020 7035 4742
E-mail: xxxxxx.xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Mr Julian Todd
Reference: T15663/8
Dear Mr Todd,
Thank you for your e-mail of 10/07/2008 9:43:14 AM. You have requested information, detailed below, concerning Section 46 and Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Your request has been considered under the Freedom of Information Act. I apologise for the delay in responding to your request.
You have requested a full list of all authorisations since the act came into force including:
The precise date, time and area of the authorisation issued by the police officer in Section 44 (4)
The name and rank of the police officer who issued the authorisation in Section 44 4)
Details of the alleged “acts of terrorism” which is expedient to prevent in Section 44 (4)
The end date specified in the original authorisation in Section 46 (1)(b)
The time and date which the Secretary of State was informed of the authorisation in Section 46(3)
Whether the authorisation lapsed after 48 hours because it was not confirmed by the Secretary of State in Section 46 (4)(a)
Whether the authorisation was confirmed by the Secretary of State and whether an earlier date or time was given in Section 46 (5)
Whether the authorisation was subsequently cancelled by the Secretary of State in Section 46 (6)
Whether the authorisation was a renewal of an earlier one in Section 46 (7)
I can confirm that the Home Office holds the information that you requested. When examining your request we have considered the provision of copies of actual authorisations and provision of a summary list detailing the answers to your questions.
After careful consideration we have considered the provision of summary information, for example a list of dates and times, of authorisations and statistics on the number of: authorisations (broken down into Section 44(1) and (2)), confirmations by Secretary of State, cancellations, renewals and amendments to end dates. We have concluded that the provision of such statistics are exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, in which the Home Office is not obliged to comply with any information request where the prescribed costs of supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit applies to all central government departments and is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 3½ days work per request. Prescribed costs include those which cover the cost of locating and retrieving information, and preparing our response to you. They do not include considering whether any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or lighting, or disbursements such as photocopying or postage.
The provision of summary statistics to answer your request is at present considered too costly to do; however, if you refine your request so that it falls under the cost limit we will consider it further. An example of how you could refine your request is to reduce the number of different elements of the request and to reduce the time period for which you have requested information to a 1 to 3 month period. You should however be aware that if you break your request down into a series of smaller requests, we might, depending on the circumstances of the case, decline to answer if the aggregated cost of complying exceeds £600, as permitted by the Fees Regulations.
In addition, you should also note for future reference that any subsequent requests will be considered under the Freedom of Information Act and may or may not fall under the exemptions contained therein. From our knowledge of the subject, it is likely that [Author ID1: at Thu Aug 28 16:04:00 2008
]the provision of copies of authorisations [Author ID1: at Thu Aug 28 16:04:00 2008
]and[Author ID1: at Thu Aug 28 16:04:00 2008
] the disclosure, by a summary list, of where authorisations have been in place, the authorising officer and the reasons for those authorisations[Author ID1: at Thu Aug 28 16:04:00 2008
] [Author ID1: at Thu Aug 28 16:04:00 2008
]the information would fall under section 23, (Information supplied by or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters), section 24 (National Security) and section 31 (Law Enforcement) of the Freedom of Information Act.
Section 23 of the Act is an absolute exemption, which provides that where information was directly or indirectly supplied to the Home Office by, or relates to, a body dealing with security matters, that information is exempt.
Sections 24 (1) and 31 (1)(a-c) are qualified exemptions which provide that information is exempt if exemption is required for the purpose of safeguarding national security (s24) and if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders, or the administration of justice (s31). Where exemptions are qualified, we are obliged to assess whether the public interest falls in favour of maintaining the exemption or disclosing the information.
In considering the public interest factors falling in favour of disclosure of the information, we would give weight to the general public interest in transparency and openness. This would be considered in balance with not disclosing the information due to national security and law enforcement issues.
Section 44 authorisations include sensitive information, including an ongoing assessment of the terrorist threat, a consideration of the terrorist threat specific to the relevant police district, a consideration of the reasons for the geographical extent of an authorisation and an assessment of the operational use of the powers. To provide such information to the public may lead to the disclosure of intelligence which may jeopardise anti-terrorist operations.
Stop-search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an important tool in the on-going fight against terrorism. As part of a structured anti-terrorist strategy, the powers help to deter terrorist activity by creating a hostile environment for would-be terrorists to operate in. The purpose of the policy is to act as a deterrent to terrorists. Therefore, even revealing the geographic area that authorisations are in place would limit the effect of these powers as a counter terrorism measure. It would also prejudice law enforcement because the knowledge of where authorisations are in place could be considered beneficial to individuals attempting to avoid detection when planning or carrying out an act of terrorism
Included below are links to two statistical publications which contain data on stop-searches under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000:
The first link is for the publication entitled: `Statistical Bulletin: Arrests for Recorded Crime (notifiable offences) and the Operation of Certain Police Powers under PACE'. This includes tables on the number of stop-searches of pedestrians, vehicles and occupants under Section 44(1) and (2) of the Terrorism Act 2000 and resultant arrests broken down into police force area.
The second link is for the publication entitled: `Race and the Criminal Justice System under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991'. This includes tables on the number of stop-searches under Section 44(1) and (2) by police force area and by ethnicity.
The link below provides access to the publication archive in which previous copies of the above documents can be found.
If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint within two months to the below address quoting reference.
Information Rights Team
Information and Record Management Service
Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Email: xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx
During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
I realise that you may be disappointed with this response. However we have considered the application of exemptions with great care in this case, and the Home Office always seeks to provide as much information as it is able to.
Yours sincerely