25 June 2009

South America Team

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

London

SW1A 2AH

Tel: 020 7008 2608

Fax: 020 7008 2476

E-mail: [email address]

Natasha Morgan

[mailto:[FOI #12586 email]]

Dear Ms Morgan

YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST 0432-09

Thank you for your email of 29 May, in which you requested:

“Andrew Millar mentioned in his response to Oliver Houston on 27^th April 2009, that the FCO holds 80 folios on Colombia from the years 2005-2009. I request the declassification of the 80 folios he     referred to.

Mr. Millar also said it would take an average of 5 minutes to check the material of each paper. Eighty folios at five minutes per folio amounts to a total of 400 minutes, less than seven hours; well within the time limit for responding to requests.”

I regret to advise that an administrative error means that Mr Millar's letter of 27 April contained inaccurate information regarding the FCO-held files on Colombia from 2005-2009. Rather than the 80 folios mentioned Mr Millar's letter, the FCO in London holds some 98 files that might contain information pertaining to this request. These files contain varying numbers of folios - we estimate around 30 per file (in some cases individual files contain as many as 200+ folios). On this basis, we estimate that around 3,000 folios are held in the FCO in London on Colombia. Furthermore, more files will be held by other Diplomatic Posts, including our Embassy in Bogota, that might contain information pertaining to this request.

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 the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint, or request a review of our decision you should write to me at the above address. You have 40 working days to do so from the date of our response.

If you are not content with the outcome of that internal review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner's Office for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaint procedure provided by the FCO. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Kay

2

Foreign &

Commonwealth

Office