Information Access Team
Financial and Commercial Group
4th Floor, Seacole Building (NE)
2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF
Switchboard 020 7035 4848
E-mail [email address] www.homeoffice.gov.uk
Request-8363-
Our Ref 11438
Your Ref
[email address]
Mr Paul Perrin
Date
4 June 2009
Dear Mr Perrin
When I wrote to you on 17 April acknowledging receipt of your request for a review of the
handling of your request for information about iris imaging, I said I had been asked to carry out
that review. The purpose of this letter is to let you know the outcome of that review.
You were sent a letter on 23 March advising you that the reply would be delayed and that the
target date for sending you a reply had been extended from 23 March until 8 April. You were
told that it was necessary for the replying unit to consider if information held relevant to your
request should be withheld under section 35(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Although section 10(3) allows us to do this, where necessary in order to consider the public
interest, I agree that it was inappropriate to send you this letter as in fact the Home Office held
no information relevant to your request. I have highlighted that this was not an acceptable
extension of deadline under the Act to the Head of Unit where the request was handled and I
apologise for this error.
As a result of this section 10(1) was breached as the request was not answered within 20
working days. Our records have been amended to show that this case was answered late, as
opposed to within a reasonable extended period as permitted by section 10(3).
In your request for a review of the handling of your request for information, you said that you
do not receive replies to your requests until the target date is due. As you are aware, the FoI
Act requires that public authorities reply to requests for information within 20 working days
from receipt with some exceptions, for example if it is necessary to consider withholding
information held. I can assure you that the Home Office works hard to reply to as many
requests as possible within target and that there is no question of any cases being ‘sat on’ as
you suggest. As I am sure you wil appreciate, the Home Office receives a great many FOI
requests, which must be dealt with in order to ensure that as many as possible are answered
on time. This, coupled with policy officials’ other work, means that although we try to answer
requests as quickly as possible it is not always possible to answer them earlier in the 20 day
period.
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BUILDING A SAFE, JUST AND TOLERANT SOCIETY
Letter Template.doc
If you are not satisfied with this response you have a further right of complaint to the
Information Commissioner who can be contacted at the following address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmore
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
www.ico.gov.uk
Yours sincerely
Steve Kirk
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