Dear Mr Naylor

Request for information

Thank you for your email of 18^th December 2008, in which you asked for information regarding the total number of Probation Officers who have been off work due to work related stress during the period of September 2007 and September 2008, from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

Your request has been passed to me because I have responsibility for answering requests which relate to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In the first instance, please accept our apologies for the length of time it has taken to provide you with a response. By way of explanation, the delay has been caused by an unusually high volume of requests for information. However, we have made a number of administrative changes which I hope will improve our service in the future.

I am sorry to inform you that from my preliminary assessment of your request, it is clear that I will not be able to answer your request without further clarification.

In order to provide you with the information on the scale that you have requested would require contacting all 42 Probation Boards in order to obtain the information you require as this information is not centrally held in the format you have requested and would therefore exceed the appropriate limit set out under section 12 of the FOI Act.

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.

As your request is widely framed, I estimate that it will take us in excess of 3.5 working days to determine appropriate material within the scope of your request, and locate, retrieve and extract that information.

I am sorry that on this occasion it has not been possible to suggest ways in which you could narrow the scope of your request in order to bring it within the cost limit.

As part of our obligations under the FOIA, the Ministry of Justice has an independent review process. If you are dissatisfied with this decision, you may write to request an internal review. The internal review will be carried out by someone who did not make the original decision, and they will re-assess how the Department handled the original request.

If you wish to request an internal review, please write or send an email to the Data Access and Compliance Unit within two months of the date of this letter, at the following address:

Data Access and Compliance Unit

Information Directorate

Ministry of Justice

1^st Floor, Zone 1C

Post point 1.41

102 Petty France

London

SW1H 9AJ

E-mail: [email address]

If you remain dissatisfied after an internal review decision, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner's Office under Section 50 of the FOIA. You can contact the Information Commissioner's Office at the following address:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Internet: https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us.aspx

Yours sincerely

David Keysell

Data Access & Compliance Unit