Dear Ms Baptiste

Re: Legacy Casework Queries

Thank you for your letter dated 21 January 2009. In that letter you requested information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about the work of the UK Border Agency to clear the backlog of asylum cases.

We are on track to clear the backlog of older cases by summer 2011. We do not collate information on case lengths centrally and these could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost through the examination of individual cases. However, the backlog contains a huge variety of cases, including errors and duplicates, and the time taken to conclude a case varies greatly, depending on its case type.

UKBA 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.

I can confirm that we do hold the information that you are interested in. To obtain the statistics that you have asked for would require a manual search of case records. We have estimated that the cost would exceed the £600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with your request.

You should 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.

3. What was the point of reallocating cases that were on the verge of being

decided and putting them back in storage?

I can confirm that no nearly completed cases have been placed back into storage. However, as this appears to relate to a specific case it is advised that you contact the Immigration and Enquiry Bureau on 0870 606 7766 who will be able to assist.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review within 2 months regarding our handling of your request by submitting your complaint to:

Head of Information Access Team

11th Floor, Short Corridor

Lunar House

Wellesley Road

Croydon

CR9 2BY

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.

Yours Sincerely

P Edwards

Case Resolution Directorate