Information Access Team
Ground Floor, Seacole Building, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF
[email address]
www.homeoffice.gov.uk
Mr Watts
[FOI #5262 email]
Date: 12 January 2010
Dear Mr Watts,
Freedom of Information request (our ref. 10868)
In the course of Home Office review processes, it has come to my attention that your
letter of 22 March 2009 to the UK Border Agency remains unanswered. In it, pursuant to
your Freedom of Information (FoI) request of 26 December 2008, you requested further
information regarding the cost burden to the U.K. of foreign criminals who have returned
to their country of origin.
Although I have not previously been involved in the handling of your request, please
allow me to apologise on behalf of the Department for this oversight and for the length
of time which it is taking to provide you with a response to your request. We accept that
to take such a time to respond is poor service and falls far short of the standards which
the Department sets itself.
Your initial request was interpreted as limited to the cash amounts paid directly to
foreign criminals. However, as you made clear in your letter of 22 March 2009, your
interest is in a wider field.
In order to satisfy your request as effectively as possible, I would like to seek
clarification of the scope and focus of your interests. If it is satisfactory to you, I would
like to treat this clarification as a new FoI request. To this end, it would be of great
assistance if you were able to confirm the parameters of your request. Does your
request refer to the total cost burden to government of foreign criminals who return to
their country of origin in the year after their release from jail? Does the time period of
your interest remain the first year of the Facilitated Returns Scheme (from October
2006)?
Thank you in advance for this additional information. Dependent on the nature of your
request and the manner in which the relevant files are stored, it may not be possible to
provide all of the information in precisely the format that you desire. However, we will be
better placed to answer your request as closely as possible if we understand precisely
the nature of that request.
Finally I note that, on 5 February 2009 and prior to the receipt of your original response,
you used the automated function on www.whatdotheyknow.com to request an internal
review of your case thus far. I appreciate that at the time you were awaiting an initial
response which was, in the event, considerably overdue. Furthermore, you had an
interest in additional information which this response did not supply.
As I have explained, I propose addressing this further information as an additional FoI
request. Bearing this in mind, do you stil require an internal review of the initial
treatment of your original FoI request of 26 December 2008?
In any case we shall, of course, make every effort to ensure no repeat of the
unsatisfactory service which you have thus far received, and to respond to your new FoI
request within the 20 working day time limit, as legislated by the FoI Act.
Yours sincerely
C Proctor
Information Access Team
