Your email dated 23 June 2008 has been considered to be a request for information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Thank you for clarifying your request for information on how long emails and correspondence are stored within the Met Office.
Emails between different parts of the Met Office and correspondence between the Met Office and external correspondents are stored for only as long as needed because of storage space in our IT systems. There is no set time that items must be stored for general correspondence. The Met Office complies with the Data Protection Act 1998 and any documents covered by the Act would be stored for the required time.
I hope this answers your enquiry.
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (the Act). Unless specifically permitted by the Act, any reproduction of the information, in whole or in part, requires the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Ministry of Defence will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright from the Office of Public Sector Information at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click- use/index.htm
Information you receive may also include third party owned information. Such information must not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without first obtaining the permission of any such third party rights holder.
If you are unhappy with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Director of Information Exploitation, 6th Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail info-XD@mod.uk). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.
If you are still unhappy following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website, http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.