Dear Mr Bimmler

Freedom of Information Act 2000

I am writing in response to your request for information that you sent by email on 25^th February 2009. You requested the following information:

“I would hereby like to request all information held by the Ministry of Justice, and especially the Private Office of the Lord Chancellor, on the consideration and decision of this entire FOI case, as long as the information has not already been published (i.e. the decision notice, the Tribunal decision, the section 53 certificate itself, need not be provided again).

If this request will infer excessive costs, I am willing to narrow it down to records and documents pertaining to the consideration of whether a section 53 certificates shall be issued or not or which in other ways are directly or indirectly concerned with this section 53 certificate. I explicitly include internal correspondence and correspondence with other parties (both governmental and external) concerning this case, resp. in the “narrow” version of my request, concerning the certificate.”

Your request has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) as a request for information.

I am sorry to inform you that from my preliminary assessment of your request, including the “narrow version”, it is clear that I will not be able to answer your request without further clarification.

To provide you with the breadth of information you have requested would require an extensive search of information held by the Ministry of Justice. Our preliminary findings show that relevant information is held by various business areas within the Department. Your request would require the Department to search through both departmental electronic and hardcopy information to ascertain whether it may hold information relevant to your request - both held in corporate records, and held by individual officials. There is no definitive list as to who holds the information you have requested and our preliminary consideration of your request suggests it will be held in various places and forms.

Section 12 of the FOIA allows public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. The costs include the cost of locating and retrieving information, and preparing our response to you. They do not include considering whether any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or lighting, or disbursements such as photocopying or postage.

As your request is widely framed, I estimate that it will take us well in excess of 3.5 working days to determine appropriate material within the scope of your request, and locate, retrieve and extract that information.

You may wish to narrow the scope of your request in order to try and bring it within the cost limit, by being more specific about which information you wish to receive, including any dates or periods of time which are relevant. For example, you may wish to narrow the scope of your request by asking for information generated within a particular month or week, or for information that would be held by a particular business unit.

You should however be aware that if you break your request down into a series of smaller requests, we might, depending on the circumstances of the case, decline to answer if the aggregated cost of complying exceeds £600.

I am sorry that on this occasion I have not been able to be of more assistance. As part of our obligations under the FOIA, the Ministry of Justice has an independent review process. If you are dissatisfied with this decision, you may write to request an internal review. The internal review will be carried out by someone who did not make the original decision, and they will re-assess how the Department handled the original request.

If you wish to request an internal review, please write or send an email to the Data Access and Compliance Unit within two months of the date of this letter, at the following address:

Data Access and Compliance Unit

Information Directorate

Ministry of Justice

1^st Floor, Zone 1C

Post point 1.41

102 Petty France

London

SW1H 9AJ

e-mail: [email address]

If you remain dissatisfied after an internal review decision, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner's Office under Section 50 of the FOIA. You can contact the Information Commissioner's Office at the following address:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Internet: https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us.aspx

Yours sincerely

Paul Brigland

Data Access & Compliance Unit