Our Ref: FOI268696

Dear Mr Greenwood

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

Thank you for your request for information which we received on 21 September 2009 about the winning tender from the Project ISSAC procurement for a shared desktop service.

I can confirm that the Cabinet Office does hold information falling within the terms of your request.

The Freedom of Information Act obliges us to respond to requests promptly and in any case no longer than 20 working days after receiving your request. However, when a qualified exemption applies to the information and the public interest test is engaged, the Act allows the time for response to be longer than 20 working days and a full response must be provided within such time as is reasonable in all circumstances of the case.

We do, of course, aim to make all decisions within 20 working days, including cases where we need to consider where the public interest test lies in respect of a request for exempt information. In this case however, we have not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies.

In your case we estimate it will take an additional 15 working days to take a decision on where the balance of public interest lies. Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by 9 November 2009.

If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, we will keep you informed.

The specific exemptions which apply in relation to your request are sections 38 (health and safety), 40 (personal data) and 43 (commercial interests) of the Freedom of Information Act.

With regard to section 43, I appreciate your desire to simplify the process by removing materials stated as commercial in confidence by Fujitsu in Schedule 8 of their tender. However, section 43 describes exemptions for the commercial interests of all parties, including those of the Cabinet Office, and we must also perform the public interest test from that point of view.

Yours Sincerely

Felicity Pickering

Cabinet Office