7
HEADQUARTERS AIR COMMAND
RAF Business Secretariat 6
Mr Briels
Royal Air Force
High Wycombe
Buckinghamshire
HP14 4UE
Request-13478-
[email address]
24 June 2009
Dear Mr Briels
Your correspondence of 18 June 2009 has been considered to be a request for information in
accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You requested the following information:
Is it possible to provide me with the date, time and location of supersonic flights carried out over the North
Sea in 2007.
I can to confirm that we hold information on the subject you have requested. However I should point out
that it is not held centrally. It has been assessed that the costs for which we are permitted to charge in
providing this information will exceed the appropriate limit. This appropriate limit specified in regulations
and for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3
and a half working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting the information.
Under the terms of Section 12 of the FOI Act, this means that
we are not obliged to comply with your request.
The MOD may be able to provide information requested if you reduce or refine your request to bring the
cost of compliance under the limit. For example, a specific date.
If you are not satisfied 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 Head of
Corporate Information, 6th Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
[email address]).
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 dissatisfied 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 your case until the MOD 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.ico.gov.uk.
Yours sincerely
[signed electronically]
Hazel King
RAF Business Secretariat 6
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