Dear Mr Stacey

Re: Freedom of Information Request

I am writing in response to your request for information in which you asked:

I would like to know the amount of money, under PSO 7500, or any other relevant prison service rule, order or instruction, which has been paid to Nacro by the Prison Service, where the recipient would have otherwise been the prisoner.

I would like to know the amounts that have been paid to Nacro in each of the last 10 years (or for the period in which figures are available).

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

In the first instance, please accept our apologies for the length of time it has taken to provide you with this information.

I can confirm that the Department holds the information you are seeking.

Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Justice is not obliged to comply with any information request 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 3½ 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.

The Ministry of Justice has estimated that the cost of answering your entire request would exceed the £600 limit and we are therefore unable to comply with it. It may help if I explain that the information you are seeking is not held centrally. To collate the information you have requested would involve contacting each establishment individually to carry out an in depth search of both electronic and paper records. This would incur disproportionate costs. Although your request would at present be too costly to answer, if you refine it so that it falls within the cost limit we will consider it further. For example, you may wish to narrow your request to a particular establishment of interest. However, you should be aware that even if you narrow your request to one establishment, the cost limit may still be engaged. As such, on this occasion you may wish to also narrow the time frame of your request.

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 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

6^th Floor, Zone B

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,

Gemma Hadjigeorge

Data Access & Compliance Unit