Mr Richard John 
 
SIT-Corporate Support Secretariat 
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE 
Level 1, Zone K, Main Building,  
Whitehall 
  London SW1A 2HB 
 
 
 
Telephone 
0207 218 9000 
 
Mr Martin Butcher 
Your Reference: 
E-mail:request-9762-
[email address]
 
21 April 2009
 
Dear Mr Butcher, 
Your correspondence dated 25 March 2009 has been considered to be a request fro 
information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.  You requested 
the following information: 
 
“Please list, for all meetings since 1992, the date, title and purpose of all JOWOGs 
and SUBWOGs meetings that have been held under the 1958 Mutual Defence 
Agreement between the United States and United Kingdom”.  
 
This letter is to inform you that the MOD holds information related to your request, 
but that we believe the information falls within the scope of the following qualified 
exemption(s):  Section 24 [National Security] and Section 27 [International Relations].  
As such it is necessary for us to decide whether, in all the circumstances of the case, 
the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in 
disclosure. 
 
The Freedom of Information Act requires us to respond to requests promptly, and in 
any case no later than 20 working days after receiving your request. However, when 
a qualified exemption applies to the information and the public interest test has to be 
conducted, the Act allows the time for response to be longer than 20 working days.  
A full response must be provided within such time as is reasonable in all 
circumstances of the case and, in relation to your request, we estimate that it will 
take an additional 15 working days to take a final decision on where the balance of 
public interest lies.  We therefore plan to let you have a response by 19 May 2009.  If 
it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion we will let you know.  
 
If you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect 
of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If 
informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for 
an independent internal review by contacting the Head of Corporate Information, 6th 
Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail [email address]). Please 
note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of 
the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end. 
 
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your complaint to 
the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of 
Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate 
your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed. Further details 

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of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the 
Commissioner's website, http://www.ico.gov.uk. 
 
Yours sincerely 
Richard John 
 

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