Midlands & East Region

Sandford House

41 Homer Road

Solihull

West Midlands

B91 3QJ

Tel +44 (0121) 713 4251

Fax +44 (0121) 713 4220

24 June 2009

Dear Teresa Potter,

Thank you for your email of 30 January where you have requested information about minutes of the WMLGA and WMSMP. This falls to be dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I would like to apologise again for the delay in sending this response to you and for any inconvenience this may have caused. As I explained in my previous correspondence to you, this was due to the large number of documents involved and the requirement to consult with a number of third-parties whose information fell within the scope of this request.

However, I am pleased to be able to confirm that the Home Office does hold information relevant to your request and some of this is enclosed with the response. However, we have decided not to communicate some of this information to you in accordance with the exemptions under sections 31(1)(e) of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. I will deal with each of these exemptions in turn.

Section 31(1)(e)

I have decided not to communicate some information to you, pursuant to the exemption under section 31(1)(e) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This allows us to exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the operation of immigration controls. Therefore part of the attached minutes of 23/04/08 this relates to unofficial local management statistics and 10/12/08 relates to intelligence information, have been withheld under this exemption.

If I were to disclose this information it could substantially prejudice the operation of our immigration controls. This is because disclosure may enable potential immigration offenders to obtain detailed information on how we operate our immigration controls. It may also enable potential immigration offenders to circumvent the system. In addition, the processes through which the UKBA works with other parts of the Home Office and with other organisations to ensure the integrity of our immigration control could be undermined.[Author ID2: at Tue Jun 23 16:11:00 2009 ]

The use of this exemption also requires us to consider whether in all circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exemption above outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

I have considered the public interest that there may be in the circumstances of this case in disclosing the information to you. There is a public interest in disclosing the information to you as it will increase the transparency of the work of UKBA. There is also a public interest in demonstrating how UKBA works together with other departments or agencies, in the interest of ensuring the integrity of our immigration controls.

I have also considered the public interest there may be in maintaining the exemption to the duty to communicate. There is a public interest in ensuring the integrity of the United Kingdom immigration controls. Disclosure of information relating to intelligence would allow potential offenders to obtain detailed information on how we operate our controls and so would better enable them to avoid those controls. In this way it would undermine immigration control and so would not be in the public interest. In addition, the release of local management information would be likely to damage UKBA's working relationship with local authorities and other organisations, by revealing details of their tactical operations and by undermining the work that they do. This could lead to reluctance on the part of those organisations to openly share their views with us. UKBA relies on the co-operation of such bodies to carry out its work and so undermining this good working relationship would not be in the public interest.

[Author ID2: at Tue Jun 23 15:52:00 2009 ]

I have considered whether in all circumstances of the case the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. I have concluded that the balance of the public interest identified lies in favour of maintaining the exemption because it is in the overall public interest that UKBA is able to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom's immigration controls.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint to:

The UKBA Customer Focus Team

13^th Floor, West Wing

Block `C'

Whitgift Centre

Wellesley Road

Croydon

CR9 1AT

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.

Yours sincerely,

Asia Choudhary

UK Border Agency

Midlands and East regional Secretariat