Dear Mr Main,

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Request

Thank you for your email of the 26^th June 2009, which the Data Access and Compliance Unit received on the 21^st July. You requested information regarding authorisation by Secretary of State for inspection of private and 3rd sector data controllers from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

Your request is being handled under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), and you will receive a response in due course. Your request has been passed to the appropriate business unit within the MoJ, and they will write to you with their decision.

The FOIA does provide a number of exemptions. A qualified exemption requires that before relying on it we must consider the public interest test. If the information you have requested is covered by a qualified exemption(s) under the FOIA, the Department is allowed to take longer than 20 working days to respond. This is because in such circumstances we are required to consider the public interest issues when deciding whether or not to disclose the information requested.

If more time is needed to consider the public interest issues under a qualified exemption(s), we will write to you and inform you of the revised date you can expect to receive a response to your request.

If you have any queries regarding this request please do not hesitate to contact us. Please quote ref: FOI/60488/09/KB in all future correspondence.

Yours sincerely,

Katie Dimon

(sent on behalf of Katharine Banaghan)

Data Access and Compliance Unit