Dear Mr Walker

Your request for Information

I am writing in connection with your e-mail of 17 March 2009 requesting information concerning “Common Purpose Graduates” in this Office. We acknowledged the e-mail on 22 April 2009. I am very sorry that we have not been in touch since.

You asked for:

courses for each of the years from 1997 to date, together with a copy of the invoice for each Common Purpose course paid for by this organisation.

You defined “Common Purpose” as the training organisation of that name: http://www.commonpurpose.org. You defined “Common Purpose graduate” as “those people who have passed the advanced Common Purpose courses”.

I have considered your request under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and also the Data Protection Act 1998.

The Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman's Office came into existence in April 2006. It is an independent Associated Office of the Ministry of Justice. The Ombudsman is Sir John Brigstocke and there are currently ten members of staff.

Section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 creates a general right for people who request information from a public authority authority to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and if that is the case, to have that information communicated. The Act also specifies a number of circumstances in which the general right to such information does not apply.

I have looked at invoices paid by this office since April 2006. We have not incurred any expenditure in respect of Common Purpose courses, as defined above.

I can also confirm that we do not hold information as to whether staff in this office are Common Purpose graduates. This does not necessarily mean that none of the staff here are Common Purpose graduates, although it can be deduced from this and the above that no-one has become a Commion Purpose graduate on account of attending a course funded by this office since April 2006. As we do not hold such information we do not need to consider the extent to which it could be released, bearing in mind the provisions of section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and also the Data Protection Act 1998.

I hope that this answers your query. If you are unhappy with the substance of this response, you may ask for an internal review. Please address your request to the Judicial Appointments and Conduct Ombudsman at the address at the top of this letter. Thereafter, if you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

I am aware that you have previously asked for an Internal Review regarding the time taken to deal with this matter. We will respond separately to you about that.

Yours sincerely

John Critchfield