
Hayley Cope
DASA (Health Information)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Spur 7, Beckford
Ensleigh
Bath BA1 5AB
Telephone: 01225 472004 Fax: 01225 468445
Email: [email address]
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Your reference: e-mail dated 14 July 2009
Our Reference: PW 15-07-2009-120907-005 - Kennedy Date: 11th August 2009 |
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Dear Mr Kennedy,
Thank you for your correspondence dated 14th July, in which you asked for the following information:
Statistics about the number of civilians working on behalf of the British Armed Forces who have been killed and/or wounded in a) Afghanistan and b) Iraq since September 2001.
Including a breakdown of dates, nationalities and the nature of their work (for example NAAFI; Expeditionary Forces Institute; various types of contractors such as transport catering and security; translators).
We are treating this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Information on civilian contractor fatalities and wounded in action is recorded by various sources including the contractors themselves, some of which is reported to International Forces. However there is no central reporting system for civilian contractor fatalities or those wounded in action therefore no overall statistics are available. This means that is it not possible to ascertain those killed in supplying only British Forces.
The casualty statistics provided by DASA on the MOD website (Links Below) includes UK Civilians. Although UK Civilians are counted in these statistics, it is not possible to distinguish those which are solely working on behalf of the British Armed Forces..
DASA update the casualty tables fortnightly, a fortnight in arrears on the MoD website.
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Ministry of Defence will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright from the Office of Public Sector. Information at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm.
Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information
In keeping with the spirit and effect of the Freedom of Information Act, all information is assumed to be releasable to the public unless exempt. The MOD therefore will be simultaneously posting the information you requested, together with any related information that will provide a key to its wider context, in our online FOI Disclosure Log at http://www.foi.mod.uk.
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.
I hope this is helpful.
Yours sincerely,
Hayley Cope
The Constitution Unit, a research body at University College London, is carrying out an independent evaluative study of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in co-operation with a number of public authorities, including the Ministry of Defence. An important part of the evaluation process is gathering the experiences and opinions of FOI requesters like you. Any information you provide will only be seen by the Constitution Unit and will be handled in accordance with its privacy policy explained in the survey. The Ministry of Defence will only see the published results: no individual responses will be visible to us and your participation will have no effect on your future dealings with the Ministry.
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