Annex A our ref : IA/02674/09

Please tell me the number of ADI's were graded as 5 or 6 for last year (2008) and 10yrs ago (1998) both the number and as a percentage of the fully qualified ADI's.

The table below shows the number of approved driving instructors (ADIs) who were graded as 5 or 6 in 1998 and 2008:-

Please note that these figures do not include any ADIs that are no longer part of the register. There was a total of 44,417 ADIs at the end of 2008.  We do not have the number of ADIs at the end of 1998, but there were 30,500 at the end of the financial year 1997-1998.  These give the above percentages, although they can not be exact because the number of ADIs fluctuates throughout the year. 

I would like the information to contain both those that were check tested and those that had been previously graded. This would give the total number in that year.

We cannot retrospectively ascertain the grades of ADIs. This information is exempt from disclosure under section 12 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act, exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit. A full breakdown of this exemption can be found at Annex B.

The appropriate limit, as prescribed by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations is £600 for central Government and £450 for public authorities, with staff costs calculated at a rate of £25 per hour.

When calculating whether the appropriate limit is exceeded, authorities can take account of the costs of determining whether the information is held, locating and retrieving the information and extracting the information from other documents. They cannot take account of the costs involved with considering whether the information is exempt under the Act.

In order to determine if any breaches had been made within DSA, it may be possible for overtime reports to be analysed so it could be established if staff had failed to take a minimum break of 1 day per week or two days per fortnight in line with the regulations. To extract the data would exceed the 24 working hour limit prescribed. This has been calculated as follows:

In order to extract the information requested it has been identified that it   would be necessary to check each registered ADIs record to establish whether they were registered in 1998 and 2008 and to check for their check test result. There was a total of 44,417 ADIs at the end of 2008. We estimate that it would take approximately 2 minutes per record. This would equate to 1,480 hours of work.

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