Foreign &
Commonwealth
Office
DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES SECTION: DO NOT MODIFY TEXT BELOW
DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES SECTION: DO NOT MODIFY TEXT ABOVE
Foreign &
Commonwealth
Office
2 March 2009
Drugs and International Crime Dept
King Charles Street
Mr Liam Craig-Best
London
SW1A 2AH
By email:
[FOI #7380 email]
Tel: 0207 008 1833
Fax: 0207 008 1809
E-mail: [email address]
R
e
Dear Mr Craig-Best,
Your Freedom Of Information Request: 0084/09
Thank you for your request for information which we received on 3 February 2009, in which
you asked for the value of counter-narcotics assistance provided by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office to Colombia each year since 2002. I can confirm that the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office does hold information falling within the terms of your request.
The FOI Act obliges us to respond to requests promptly, and in any case no later than 20
working days after receiving your request. However, when a qualified exemption applies to
the information and the public interest test is engaged, the Act allows the time for response
to be longer than 20 working days, and a full response must be provided within such time as
is reasonable in all circumstances of the case. We do, of course, aim to make all decisions
within 20 working days, including in cases where we need to consider where the public
interest lies in respect of a request for exempt information. In this case, however, we have
not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies.
In your case we estimate that it will take an additional
20 days to take a decision on where
the balance of the public interest lies. Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by
20 March 2009. If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, we will
keep you informed.
The specific exemption(s) which apply in relation to your request is: Section 27 International
Relations.
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 to The Information
Rights Team. Please note any request for an internal review must be submitted within 40
working days from the date our response was issued.
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 Foreign and Commonwealth
Office. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Please contact me if you have any queries about this letter.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of
Drugs and International Crime Department
