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 Michael Bimmler
[FOI #4466 email]
Our Ref: 10694
Date: 14 July 2009
Dear Mr Bimmler,
I am writing further to my letter dated 11 June 2009, regarding your request for an
internal review.
I must first apologise for the delay in providing you with a full response. However, I
have now completed a full review of the handling of your request and of the reasons
behind the decisions taken by the Home Office. This request has been treated on its
own merits and al papers originally considered have been re-considered as part of
the internal review.
The detailed findings of my review are set out in the annex to this letter. In summary
I have concluded that:
o The Home Office breached section 10(1) of the Act in failing to respond to
your request or to extend the deadline for response within 20 working days.
o The Home Office did not hold any information relating to your request at the
time it was received. In stating that it did hold information and that the said
information was exempt under section 31(1)(a) of the Act, the department
breached sections 1(1)(a) and 17(1) of the FOI Act.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the failure to deal with your request for
information in accordance with the Act. The Home Office takes its responsibilities
under the Act very seriously and I have ensured that the findings of this review have
been brought to the attention of the officers concerned in the handling of your
request.
You may be interested to know that some information (dated following your request)
has since been released in to the public domain. This includes a letter from then
Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick to the Home Secretary dated 3 December 2008.
A copy of the text of this letter can be found at the fol owing URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7765081.stm.
I realise that this response may be a disappointment to you. However I would like to
assure you that the review has been both thorough and independent and I am
satisfied that the Home Office does not hold any information relevant to the second
part of your request.
Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review you have the right of
complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the
Freedom of Information. The relevant address can be found in the annex to this
letter.
Yours sincerely,
John Bragaglia
Information Access Consultant
Annex
The first part of my review concerned the procedural aspects of the handling of your
case. Your request was received by the Department on 1 December 2008. Section
10(1) of the Act states:
‘a public authority must comply with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later
than the twentieth working day following the date of receipt.’
You received a final response on 11 February 2009, a ful 49 working days following
receipt of the request, wel over the 20 working day deadline specified in section
10(1) of the Act.
The 20 working day deadline is extendable by virtue of section 10(3) of the Act.
However, a ful extension letter, and notice of the qualified exemption under
consideration must be provided within the original deadline. A Public Interest Test
(PIT) extension letter was sent to you on 19 January, outside of the deadline. The
letter stated that the exemption at section 31 of the Act was being considered and
provided you with a revised deadline of 29 January 2009. The failure to provide an
extension notice within the 20 working day deadline represents a breach of section
10(1) of the Act.
On 30 January 2009, you wrote to the caseworker enquiring as to our response.
Following this a further extension letter was sent to you, extending the deadline to 26
February 2009. Unfortunately, as the second extension notice was sent the day
following the first extended deadline, this represents an additional breach of section
10(1) of the Act.
The failure to respond within twenty working days and the subsequent failure to
respond within a revised deadline represents a breach of section 10(1) of the Act.
The Home Office apologises for these breaches of section 10(1). The Department
takes its responsibilities under the Act seriously and always aims to respond within
the 20 working day deadline where possible. There wil be some circumstances
where this will not be possible and the deadline wil need to be extended. However,
in all such circumstances applicants should be kept fully informed as to the progress
of their request. I have taken this opportunity to remind the relevant caseworkers of
the importance of maintaining contact with applicants and regularly updating them on
expected response times.
When requesting an internal review you asked that its scope should specifical y be
limited to the refusal to provide information withheld under the exemption at section
31(1)(a) of the Act. In the second part of my review I have looked at this decision and
whether it was taken in compliance with the requirements of the Act. Having now
completed my investigation I can inform you that the Home Office did not hold any
information relating to the second part of your request, at the time at which it was
made.
The failure to inform you that information relevant to this part of your request was not
held by the Home Office represents a breach of section 1(1)(a) of the Act which
states:
‘1(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled-
(a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information
of the description specified in the request’
Additionally, the failure to provide an accurate response represents an additional
breach of section 17(1) of the Act. I apologise for these breaches and have further
reminded caseworkers of the need to check careful y both the scope of the request
and the date at which it was made before concluding whether any relevant
information is or is not held. As you will be aware Freedom of Information requests
can be made for information held by an authority at the time at which the request was
submitted.
Right of complaint
Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review you have the right of
complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the
Freedom of Information Act.
You can write to him at:
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
