Thank you for your request for information, which we received on 9 February 2009.

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 is engaged and the public interest test is being considered, 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.  In this case, however, we have not yet reached a decision on where the balance of the public interest test lies. 

In your case we estimate that it will take an additional 20 working days to take a decision on where the balance of the public interest lies. Therefore, we plan to let you have a response by 6 April 2009. It if appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion, we will keep you informed. 

The specific exemption(s) which are engaged in relation to your request is/are: 

- Section 23 - Information supplied by - or relating to - bodies dealing with security matters; 

- Section 24 - National security;