Information Access Team
Shared Services Directorate
2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF
Switchboard 020 7035 4848
E-mail: [email address] Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk
Mr Jay MacDonald
[FOI #20649 email]
Date: 16 October 2009
Our Ref: 13031
Dear Mr MacDonald
Thank you for your e-mail of 12 October 2009, in which you ask for copies of
all memos, documents and communications between the Home Office and
the Church of Scientology and related organisations.
Your request has been
handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as a request
for information.
Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office is not
obliged to comply with any information request where the prescribed costs of
supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit applies to all
central government departments and is based on work being carried out at a
rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 3½ days work per request. Prescribed
costs include those which cover the cost of locating and retrieving information,
and preparing our response to you. They do not include considering whether
any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or
lighting, or disbursements such as photocopying or postage.
We have estimated that the cost of answering your request would exceed the
£600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with it. The Home Office
holds a large number of files related to the Church of Scientology. In order to
locate information relevant to your request a manual search of each of these
files would need to be undertaken. It is this search which would exceed the
cost limit. Although your request would at present be too costly to answer, if
you refine it so that it falls under the cost limit we wil consider it further. You
may wish to consider restricting your request to a single year in which you are
particularly interested for example. You should however be aware that if you
break your request down into a series of smaller requests, we might,
depending on the circumstances of the case, decline to answer if the
aggregated cost of complying exceeds £600, as permitted by the Fees
Regulations.
You may be interested to know that the Home Office has already released
some information relating to the Church of Scientology in the period 1993–
2008 –
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/freedom-of-information/released-
information/foi-archive-research1/9395_church_scientology?view=Standard. If
you wish to request copies of these documents please call the number
provided and we will arrange for a set to be sent to you.
Alternatively some information relating to the Church of Scientology may have
been released to The National Archives (TNA) as historical records, under the
30 year rule. You can search the TNA’s catalogue at the following link -
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/?source=ddmenu_search3.
If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent
internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint
within two months to the above address quoting reference 13031.
During the independent review the department’s handling of your information
request wil be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you
with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review,
you wil have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as
established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
I realise that this reply may be a disappointment to you, but I look forward to
hearing from you again shortly should you wish to refine your request.
Yours sincerely,
John Bragaglia
Information Access Consultant
