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'Prisoner's babies'.
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Data Access and Compliance Unit Postal Point 6.25 Floor 6 102 Petty France London SW1H 9AJ T 020 3334 5493 F 020 3334 2245 E [email address] |
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Ian Tyes |
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[FOI #21873 email] |
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9 December 2009 |
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Our Ref: FOI 62435 |
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Dear Mr Tyes,
RE: Request for an Internal Review
Thank you for your email dated 30 November in which you expressed dissatisfaction with the Department's response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and asked for an Internal Review of that decision. Your request has been passed to me for investigation as I carry out Internal Reviews for the Ministry of Justice MOJ) related matters.
The purpose of an Internal Review is to assess how your Freedom of Information request was handled in the first place.
On 12 October 2009 you asked:
How many male prisoners have been allowed to make babies by artificial insemination of their wives/partners in each of the last 10 years?
How many female prisoners have got pregnant in each of the last 10 years?
On 23 November MOJ replied to your request informing you that the information that you request is held but it was estimated that it would take more than 3.5 working days to do so and therefore be exempt under section 12 of the FoIA (disproportionate costs exemption).
I have reviewed the way in which your case was handled and I have looked at the basis of the original decision and I have concluded that the judgement to apply Section 12 exemption to the request was correct.
The information that you request covers 13 currently female prisons (and 4 that did hold females but no longer) over a 10 year period and as this information is not collated centrally, the data it would need to be extracted from each of those prisons separately. I estimate that it would take MOJ more than 3.5 working days to do so and therefore be exempt under section 12.
To give you some idea of the scale of the task, it is estimated that 40,000 files would have to be interrogated separately to extract the information that you have requested.
In our response to you on 23 November, it was suggested that you narrow the scope of your request by limiting it to one establishment to try to bring it within the cost limit.
I hope that the Internal Review has provided an explanation with regard to your requested information.
If you are dissatisfied with the findings of this internal review, you can complain to the Information Commissioner, at the following address:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
Roger Davies
Data Access & Compliance Unit
