Ships and Submarines Team
DE&S Policy Secretariat
#2043 Maple 0
MOD Abbey Wood
Bristol BS34 8JH
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx
Mr Fred Dawson
Our References:
29-08-2012-102657-001
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
25-10-2012-090410-001
Date:
14 November 2012
Dear Mr Dawson,
Request for Information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000
I am writing in response to your email of 5 November 2012, in which you say:
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Defence's handling of my FOI
request 'Loss of specialist capabilities needed to support the nuclear propulsion
programme'.
As you will see from my email dated 23 October I have reason to believe that the
information requested does exist and it is on this basis I am requesting an internal
review
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at
this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/loss_of_specialist_capabilities
I should first like to apologise for not writing to you sooner to explain the action we were
taking as a result of your email of 23 October.
I can confirm that the email above has been passed to the MOD’s FOI Internal Review
team but, following discussions with them, it is proposed not to carry out an Internal
Review at this stage. This is because your email of 23 October was recorded as a new
request shortly after it was received, on the basis that it provided specific clarification,
which will assist us in locating the information you are seeking. As you are aware, no
information was found by the searches we carried out based on your initial request, but the
clarification you provided has allowed us to carry out a more focused search.
As a result, we are currently processing your clarified request, with the intention of
providing you with a response no later than 20 November. The clarified request has been
assigned reference 25-10-2012-090410-001 as the previous request was formally closed
on our systems.
If, after you have received a substantive response, you wish us to proceed with an Internal
Review, that option will remain open to you. At this stage, however, it is considered
appropriate to continue with the work that has already started on your clarified request,
rather than simply reviewing the handling of your original request.
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, 2nd Floor,
MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx). 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 of the role
and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's
website, http://www.ico.gov.uk.
Yours sincerely,
The Ships and Submarines Team