Information Access Team
Ground Floor, Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF 
Switchboard 020 7035 4848    Direct Line 020 7035 1022 
 [email address] [email address]
www.homeoffice.gov.uk 
Mr Peter Collingbourne 
[email address]
[FOI #4419 email]
Date: 4 February 2010 
  
Dear Mr Collingbourne 
 
Freedom of Information requests (our refs. 10676 and 11863): internal review 
 
I am writing further to my e-mail of 10 November 2009 about your requests for internal 
reviews of our responses to your Freedom of Information (FoI) requests about contracts 
relating to the National Identity Scheme. 
 
I have now completed the review. I have examined the relevant papers and have 
consulted the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) who provided the original response. I 
have considered whether the correct procedures were followed and assessed the 
reasons why information was withheld from you.  I confirm that I was not involved in the 
initial handling of your request. 
 
My findings are set out in the attached report.  My main conclusions are that the original 
responses should not have relied on sections 12(1) and 22(1) of the FoI Act in 
withholding information from you.  The response to your first request was also 
unacceptably late and in breach of section 10(1) of the Act, for which I apologise on 
behalf of the Department.  We have agreed with IPS that they wil  send to you a revised 
response to your requests.  
 
As explained in the report, IPS intend to publish summaries of the two contracts with 
Thales and CSA by the end of February 2010. They wil  be available on the IPS 
website. I understand that the summaries which wil  be published will, in terms of the 
information which they provide if not the exact format, be that which would be provided 
in response to an FoI request such as those which you have made.  Where information 
is withheld, IPS wil  explain the reason and refer to the relevant sections of the Act. 
 
IPS wil  accordingly send to you later this month a revised response based on the 
summaries which wil  be published, together with the references to the sections of the 
FoI Act under which information is withheld.  Since the information is too large to 
send electronically, they will require a postal address to which to send the  

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information.  I would be grateful if you could provide such an address. 
 
This completes the internal review process by the Home Office in respect of the original 
IPS responses to your requests.  If you remain dissatisfied after you have received the 
revised IPS response to which I have referred, you may ask for a further internal review. 
Alternatively, you have the right of complaint to the Information Commissioner at the 
following address: 
 
The Information Commissioner 
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow 
Cheshire SK9 5AF 
 
Yours sincerely 
 
Adrian Brook 
Information Access Team 

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