Dear Mr Cross

Internal Review- Freedom of Information Request

I write in response to the Internal Review request you made on 16 April 2009 in relation to a Freedom of Information request dated 4 March 2009. Your Internal Review has been handed to me as I deal with the Ministry of Justice Internal Reviews on Freedom of Information (FoI) requests. I have conducted an Internal Review of your case and I hope you find my conclusions adequately clarify the results of your FoI enquiry.

In the first response to your FoI request the Ministry of Justice informed you that the information you requested, specifically, the names of all government departments, is not held. I can confirm, in accordance with section 1(1)(a) FoI Act, that the Ministry of Justice does not hold this information. However, following an Internal Review, it has been established that this should have been made clearer to you and a quotation of the correct section of the FoI Act would have aided your understanding.

Your request was very broad and I have assessed that an attempt to collate information from across all central government departments would exceed the cost limit prescribed by the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12 of the FoI Act, the Ministry of Justice is not obliged to answer requests where the prescribed costs of supplying you with the information exceed £600. The £600 limit applies to all central government departments and is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 3.5 days work per request. Prescribed costs include those which cover the cost of locating, retrieving and extracting 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.

I am aware that in your FoI request you expressed a particular interest in government departments that exercised a statutory function on behalf of the Crown, in line with the definition laid out in section 84 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I have calculated that the cost of retrieving the information you require exceeds this cost limit as one caseworker would have to contact each government department and decipher whether a statutory function is exercised on behalf of the Crown, and then collate the information into a readable format.

To put the size of this task in context, I have estimated that to carry out this job in the Ministry of Justice alone, the costs would go beyond £600 limit because the Ministry of Justice is comprised of many different departments exercising a range functions at varying levels. In terms of your request where we would be looking for `government departments' exercising a statutory function on behalf of the Crown, it would be very difficult to limit the information we look for in an organisation of this size and there is a danger of inaccuracy because the information is not held in a readily accessible format.

For your FoI request, this same task would have to be applied a number of times across different parts of the government. As well as costing restraints, I would not be able to guarantee that you have a full answer. I am sorry that I am unable to provide you with any new information on your FoI request.

Outside of the Act and in an effort to be helpful, I have included a website link to a substantive list of government departments which I hope will aid you in your own investigation.

http://www.parliament.uk/directories/hciolists/hmg.cfm

I hope my explanation has been able to offer you some clarity as to why the Ministry of Justice has been unable to provide you with the information you requested. If you are dissatisfied with the result of your Internal Review, 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

Hannah Wright

Data Access & Compliance Unit