09 March 2009

South America Team

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

London

SW1A 2AH

Tel: 020 7008 2608

Fax: 020 7008 2476

E-mail: [email address]

Oliver Houston

By email to: [FOI #7868 email]]

Dear Mr Houston

YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST 0114-09

Thank you for your email of 12 February, received in the FCO on 13 February, in which you requested:

“Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, please could you inform me in what year the British Government ceased providing counter-guerrilla assistance to the Colombian security forces?

It may be useful for you to see the 23/11/99 parliamentary statement made by former Minister John Speller in which he confirms that such assistance was being provided at that time.”

I can confirm that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) holds information regarding UK Government assistance to Colombia.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provisions for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit. The limit has been specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. For central government the appropriate limit is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one or more persons spending 3 ½ days working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it. Your request as presently formulated is widely-framed and I estimate that it will take more than 3 ½ working days to locate, retrieve and extract this information. In these circumstances we are not obliged under the Act to comply with your request. You may therefore wish to refine your request to narrow its scope to bring it within the appropriate limit. Should you wish to narrow the scope of your request we will assess the new request and whether it falls with the stipulated limit of £600 to administer.

In considering a new request, you might wish to refer to an answer Gillian Merron, FCO Minister for Latin America, gave to a Parliamentary Question on this issue on 4 March:

Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what mechanisms are in place to ensure that counter-narcotics assistance provided by the Government to the Colombian security forces is not used for counter-insurgency purposes. [260004]

Gillian Merron: We scrupulously monitor all UK engagement with the government of Colombia on counter-narcotics. Our work continues to meet the highest standards of probity and effectiveness. We do not provide any counter-insurgency assistance.

We fully endorse the efforts of the Government of Colombia to tackle the influence of illegal, criminal and terrorist groups in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.

If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint, or request a review of our decision you should write to me at the above address. You have 40 working days to do so from the date of our response.

If you are not content with the outcome of that internal review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner's Office for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaint procedure provided by the FCO. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

The Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Kay

2

Foreign &

Commonwealth

Office