Dear Mr Tyes,

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Request

Thank you for your e-mail received here on 9 March in which you asked for the following details from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).

Please confirm the total number of prisoners remanded in custody awaiting trial broken down by age, gender and nationality. Please also break down how long they have spent in custody.

Your request has been passed to me because I have responsibility for answering requests which relate to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) which includes the Prison and Probation Services has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I can confirm that the Department holds the information you are seeking, and I am pleased to inform you that this information is already in the public domain.[Author ID1: at Tue Nov 11 12:39:00 2008 ]

You can find the information at the following website free of charge at the following internet address:

The Information you require is contained in the latest edition of Offender Management Casework Statistics (OMCS) a link to which is provided below.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/omcs2007.pdf

Table 7.1 in OMCS provides a breakdown by custody type, age and gender (though most of chapter 7 provides variations on these main variables).

Nationality is provided in table 7.14 by country and then by non-British status as a whole in tables 7.21-7.23.

Tables 9.1 and 9.2 show how long someone has spent in prison following a discharge from a determinate sentence. Table 9.5 shows how long lifers have spent in prison following a first release.

As the information you are seeking is already available in the public domain, it is exempt from disclosure under Section 21 (Information reasonably accessible to the applicant) of the FOIA.

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

12 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

Dave Norris