David Stringer

Associated Press,

The Old Bar,

Press Gallery,

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

[email address]

0207 222 8525

Ref: T321/9

Dear David Stringer

Thank you for your recent e-mail in which you ask for:

1. copies of any reports published by RICU on its work since its inception, or any other memo, circular, document or paper that has been produced and intended to provide details of the unit's work, findings or operations.

2. copies of any document, circular, memo or paper issued by RICU since its inception to UK embassies overseas, to other HMG clients and/or to external clients.

Your request has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as a request for information.

You say that `at a meeting of the National Policing Board on May 17, 2007, Jaee Samant - a Home Office official - said that HMG's Research, Information and Communications Unit would report on its work to the FCO, DCLG and Home Office.'

I do not have records of this meeting, but it is worth noting that RICU is jointly funded by FCO, DCLG and Home Office, and so I do not know if the expression `reports to' was used in the sense of `is responsible to' rather than `sends regular reports to' as you seem to have inferred.

Your request for any reports, memos, circulars, documents and papers would appear to include emails (most of our work is distributed electronically rather than on paper), and so includes practically all the work that RICU has done since its inception.

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 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.

Although your request would at present be too costly to answer, if you refine it so that it falls under the cost limit we will consider it further. It may be that you are looking for RICU's purpose and Governance and headline details of the sort of work it does. You should however be aware that if you break your request down into a series of smaller requests, we might, depending on the circumstances of the case, decline to answer if the aggregated cost of complying exceeds £600, as permitted by the Fees Regulations.

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 10971:

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 this reply may be a disappointment to you, but I look forward to hearing from you again shortly should you wish to refine your request.

Yours sincerely

J Fanshaw