1 Horse Guards Road London SW1A 2HQ
Information Rights Unit
Tel: 0207 270 4558
Fax: 0207 270 4861
Alastair Manderson
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Via e-mail to:
[email address]
request-669-
Ref: IRU/ 8/324
[email address]
CEU email 09591/2008
26 June 08
Dear Mr Manderson
Freedom of Information Act request: prisoners- per capita expenditure
Thank you for your enquiry dated 4 June 2008 which we received on 5 June 2008. I am
treating your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
You asked for information covering –
• The average amount of money allocated per prisoner held by HM Prison
Service
• Whether this has increased or decreased since 2005
In order to respond to a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, a public
authority is required to perform a reasonable search of recorded information. HM
Treasury is unlikely to hold information matching your request as calculation of average
allocation per head would require input from multiple records across multiple
departments. However, although we are not aware of any information matching your
request, initial searches of our records indicate many matches to keywords in your
request. These terms are broad (including ‘prisoner’, ‘cost’, and ‘average’) and the
nature of Treasury business means that these terms are used in many hundreds of
documents both singly and in combination. We have refined our searches by combining
terms in Boolean searches and limiting by time, but the number of matches revealed
means that we estimate that this request would exceed the limit set in Regulations for
the costs of replying to an FOI request.
For central government this limit is set at £600 and represents the estimated cost of one
person spending three and a half working days in determining whether the Treasury
holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under
section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act departments are not obliged to comply with
requests in these circumstances. Therefore we will not be processing your request
further.
Although we have been unable to identify relevant information from within our records,
some information relating to your request has been published in responses by Home
Office Ministers to Parliamentary Questions. The FOI Act does not oblige public
authorities to re-issue information that is reasonably accessible (under section 21), but to
help you locate this I have provided links to the relevant PQs below:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm071029/text/71
029w0048.htm#07103034001115
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070416/text/70
416w0107.htm#07041956007254
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070308/text/70
308w0014.htm#07030877001453
To assist you in formulating any new request to the Treasury, I should explain that HM
Treasury’s role in the allocation of public funds is to set the ground rules for the
administration of pubic money. As part of this role the Treasury sets budgets for
individual departments to meet ministers’ fiscal policy objectives, and maintains the
Financial Reporting Manual which sets the standards to which departments, non-
departmental public bodies and other parts of the public sector publish annual reports
and accounts. However, within the standards expected by Parliament, and subject to
the overall control and direction of their ministers, departments have considerable
freedom about how they organise, direct and manage the resources at their disposal,
and it is for the Accounting Officer in each department, acting within ministers’
instructions, to control and account for the department’s business. Given the nature of
the Treasury’s role we do not always hold detailed information about departmental
spending and for questions of detail it is usually more productive to go direct to the
responsible spending department. In the case of spending on prison services you may
wish to address requests to the Ministry of Justice. Information about how to make an
information request to the Ministry of Justice is published on their website, at the link
below:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/requestinginformation.htm
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact the Correspondence and
Enquiry Unit at the following address: [HM Treasury request email]. It will be
helpful to us if you remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.
Yours sincerely,
Melanie Scoulding
Information Rights Unit
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Your Rights to Complain under the FOI Act
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint or request
an review of our decision, you should write within two months of the date of this letter to HM Treasury, Information Rights
Unit, 2/S2, 1 Horse Guards Road, London SW1A 2HQ. email - public.enquiries@hm -treasury.gov.uk
If you are not content with the outcome your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the
Treasury. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
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