^4th Floor, Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

E-mail: [email address]

Web Site: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

Our Ref 10115

Date 09-03-09

Mr Stephen Gradwick

[FOI #1906 email]

Dear Mr Gradwick,

I am writing further to my previous correspondence about a complaint you submitted to the Home Office due to the delay in sending a substantive response to your original Freedom of Information (FOI) request about PA Consulting.

I must apologise for the severe delays that you have encountered in this case. It is clear that the Home Office has exceeded the normal twenty day deadline by a very significant margin. I therefore fully accept that section 10(1) of the FOI Act has been breached and offer my sincere apologies for this. Although this case has proven complex I fully accept that it should have been answered well before now.

As you will probably be aware, section 10(3) of the FOI Act does allow public authorities to extend the normal response time where necessary to allow for consideration of the public interest test (PIT) in relation to qualified exemptions. Although it is clear that this was not done in this case, it has been necessary to consider the public interest in relation to qualified exemptions in this case. While I acknowledge that we hold information relevant to your request, it has been necessary to consider the public interest in saying whether or not we hold any further information in relation to the national security exemption contained in section 24 of the Act. You should not take this letter as an indication that any such further information either is or is not held.

Given that such a letter informing you of this was not issued within the original twenty days and has not been to date, I am not going to seek to issue a PIT extension letter retrospectively (in any event this cannot be done under the terms of the Act). Clearly even had such a letter been issued in compliance with the Act, the length of time taken to resolve this matter could not be regarded as “reasonable”. Section 10(1) is therefore breached irrespective of the relevance of qualified exemptions.

I would however add that the final response to your request has now been drafted and is awaiting sign off before it is sent to you. You should receive this final reply within the next ten working days. A copy of that letter will also be sent to the Information Commissioner given that they have asked that we do so.

If you are dissatisfied with the content of that response when sent to you, you may request for a review of the decisions ultimately taken. During the independent review the response to your information request would be reassessed by staff not involved in its processing. An internal review can be requested by submitting your complaint to:

Information Rights Team

Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Email: [email address]

Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a further right of complaint to the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

John Gomes

Information Rights Team

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