Dear Mr Hosking

Duchy of Cornwall

Thank you for your email of 10 February 2009, in response to my letter of that date. Your comments on the history of the Duchy of Cornwall have been noted.

You asked whether the Duchy of Cornwall was ever discussed by Government in relation to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and Schedule 1 of that Act; who gave an opinion on this subject, and what they said. As a request for recorded information, your request has been considered under the FOI Act 2000 and I am replying in compliance with that Act.

Section 12(2) of the FOI Act exempts a public authority from the duty to confirm whether or not they hold the information being requested if they estimate that the cost of the necessary work would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government is set at £600, which represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in identifying, locating, retrieving and extracting the information requested.

As your request is widely framed, we estimate that the work that would be necessary to enable us to confirm whether the Department holds information within the scope of your request would exceed the appropriate limit. Consideration by Government of the Duchy of Cornwall's eligibility for inclusion in Schedule 1 of the FOI Act could, in theory, be recorded among a very large number of documents relating to policy on freedom of information created between the Government's coming to power in 1997 and the passage of the FOI Act in 2000. Any discussion of the Duchy's position during the Parliamentary proceedings on the FOI Bill might have provided pointers to consideration of the issue within files held by the Department, but we have found nothing relevant in the records of the debates on the Bill.

As you know, the Government's view is that the Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate. The Government made clear from the outset its intention that FOI should be applied only to public, not private, organisations (other than those carrying out public functions, for example as contractors to public authorities). Against that background, we consider it unlikely that information on the Duchy of Cornwall is contained anywhere among the information on the consideration of policy leading to the FOI Act and Schedule 1 held by the Ministry of Justice. I am afraid it has therefore not been possible, on this occasion, 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, who 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 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

Janet Hawkes

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