Direct Communications Unit

2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF

Switchboard 020 7035 4848 Fax: 020 7035 4745 Textphone: 020 7035 4742

E-mail: [Home Office request email] Website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

Dr Geraint Bevan

[FOI #5395 email]

Reference: T74/9 20 January 2009

Dear Dr Bevan,

Thank you for your e-mail of the 4 January in which you asked:

“If you would provide me with details of licences granted for animal testing for research funded wholly or in part by cosmetics companies for each year since 1997. Specifically, I would like to know the year of issue, project aims and expected benefits associated with each licence

If the cost of providing this information would be prohibitive, I am most interested in more recent years, so please bring forward the cut-off date if necessary.”

We have dealt with your e-mail as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI).

In 1997/1998 the Government secured a voluntary ban on the testing of cosmetic finished products and ingredients on animals in the United Kingdom. It is possible that companies producing cosmetics are also involved in other manufacturing or marketing, which might entail research not excluded by our ban. However the Home Office does not have a central database that contains this information.

Providing specific details of the funding body for all of the research on each project licence is not a requirement under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Although some applicants may provide details of the current or immediately forthcoming finding, it is almost never possible to provide comprehensive information to cover the whole life cycle of a 5-year project. Any information of the type you have requested is embedded within some 4,000 - 5,000 paper files.

Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office is not obliged to comply with any information request where the prescribed costs of supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit applies to all central government departments and is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 3½ days work per request. Prescribed costs include those which cover the cost of locating and retrieving relevant information, and preparing our response to you. They do not include considering whether any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or lighting, or disbursements such as photocopying or postage.

We may hold some information in which you are interested, but have estimated that the cost of answering your request, even with respect to the last two calendar years, would exceed the £600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with it. For each calendar month approximately 60 applications would have to be examined, which on average would take 30 minutes an application; a cost of £750.

A factor that you will may also wish to take into account should you refine your request is that Section 44 of the FOI Act provides that information is exempt information if its disclosure (otherwise than under the FOI Act) is prohibited by or under any other enactment. As information contained in the project licences is subject to a duty of confidentiality, its disclosure other than in the discharge of functions under the 1986 Act is prohibited by section 24 of the same Act. Disclosure of information in response to requests made under the FOI Act forms no part of those functions. Section 44 of the FOI Act, therefore, would apply.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint within two months to the below address quoting reference 10957:

Information Rights Team
Information and Record Management Service
Home Office
4th Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Email: [email address]

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

I realise that you may be disappointed with this response. However, we have considered the application of exemptions with great care in this case, and the Home Office always seeks to disclose as much information as it is able to.

Yours sincerely

Jon Richmond

Head of Division

Animals Scientific Procedures Division