Our ref: FOI/56667/08

Dear Pat,

Freedom of Information Act Request

I refer to you email of 13 November 2008 requesting the following information:

“Please indicate the number of prisoners serving Life Sentences for the murder of more than on person broken down by prison”.

Firstly, I apologise for the delay in responding to your request. By way of explanation, the delay has been caused by an unusually high volume of requests for information and some legacy process issues. We are pleased to say that we have made a number of administrative changes, which we hope will improve our service. In addition, replies to outstanding and current requests are now being progressed by a larger team and we hope to respond to all of these no later than 31^st March 2009. The Information Commissioner is aware of the difficulties the unit has faced and is monitoring the changes we are implementing to improve the position.

I hope this explains why there has been an unacceptable delay in handling your request and gives some assurance that we are doing our best to improve our performance.

Turning to your request, I can confirm that no such statistical breakdown has been previously generated by the Department within the terms of the request and is therefore regarded as `not held'. However, the Department do hold underlying data in form of manual files and in order to provide you with information that you have requested, we would have to access each every murder case. It will take an inordinate amount of time to collate the information and then undergo the process of analysis on the information held which could then extrapolate further information. We estimate that it will take us more than 3 ½ days to locate, retrieve and extract the information requested.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central Government is set at £600, which represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3 ½ working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

However, information specifically about homicides, but not about where persons convicted of homicide offences are imprisoned, is collected by the Home Office. You may if you wish submit your request direct to them at the following website: [email address].

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 & Compliance Unit, Information Directorate, Ministry of Justice,1^st Floor - Area C, 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

Amrit Lotay (Ms)

Access Rights Unit

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