FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST 61839

Thank you for your e-mail of the 12^th October 2009, which has been passed to me to action.

You asked:

Your request has been handled under the freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA). I can confirm that the department holds information within the scope of your request.

I am sorry to inform you that from my preliminary assessment of your request, it is clear that provision of the required information would exceed the `appropriate limit' set out in section 12 of the FoIA

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not collect the information you have requested centrally. NOMS only centrally collects information relating to pregnant women and mothers and babies in prison to aid its management of places on Mother and Baby Units (MBUs). There are 7 Mother and Baby Units in England and Wales with a total capacity of 75 places. When considering applications for admission to Mother and Baby Units the best interests of the child are paramount.

In order to comply with the request, it would be necessary to manually search individual prisoner records for the 10-year period requested, at each of the 13 prisons which hold female prisoners; as well as those which have re-rolled in the past. That information would then need to be collated centrally prior to release. This would be a significant task and I estimate that it would take us more than 3.5 working days to do so and therefore be exempt under section 12 of the FoIA (disproportionate costs exemption).

Section 12 of the FoIA makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

You may wish to narrow the scope of your request in order to try and bring it within the cost limit, by being more specific about which information you wish to receive, including any dates or periods of time which are relevant. For example, you may narrow the scope of your request by referring to a particular establishment. However, please be aware that due to the nature of your request the cost limit may still be engaged.

You should also be aware that even if you are able to 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.

I appreciate that this does not answer your questions in full. I trust you find the information I have provided helpful. As part of our obligations under the FoIA, If you are unhappy with the result of your request for information, you may request an internal review within two calendar months of the date of this letter by writing to: Data Access and Compliance Unit, Information Directorate, Ministry of Justice, 6th Floor, Zone B, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely

Tunde Adeniji

The National Offender Management Service: an agency of the Ministry of Justice protecting the public and reducing re-offending by delivering probation and prison services