Disclosure Team
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ
xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Mark Spaven
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
15 June 2019
Dear Mr Spaven
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – 190621002
Thank you for your request dated 21 June 2019 in which you asked for the following
information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):
Please can you tell me the number of male and female inmates let out of prison to
take driving tests in 2018 and 2017. Please breakdown the figures for men and
women and provide details of the crimes they were convicted for.
Your request has been handled under the FOIA.
I can confirm the MoJ holds all of the information you have requested. However, to provide
as the request currently stands would exceed the cost limit set out in the FOIA.
Section 12(1) of the FOIA means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request
for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit
. The
appropriate limit for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of
one person spending 3.5 working days determining whether the department holds the
information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
Where section 12 applies to one part of a request we refuse all of the request under the cost
limit as advised by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
We believe that the cost of locating, retrieving and examining the individual prison files of
every prisoner who was released under the centrally collated category of ‘
Other
Resettlement Day Release’ (RDR) to subsequently ascertain the number of those releases
for which the reason for the release was for the purpose of taking driving lessons would
exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with your request.
The reason for this is because since August 2017, from collated centrally data held by the
MoJ it is not possible to separately identify instances where the reason for the release was
specifically for the purpose of taking driving lessons. Since that date, these are now included
in the broader category of:
‘Other RDR Linked to Sentence/Resettlement Plan’, which
includes releases for many reasons other than for taking driving lessons.
Although we cannot answer your request at the moment, we may be able to answer a
refined request within the cost limit. You may wish to consider, for example, restricting the
scope of your request to the time period January – July 2017. Please be aware that we
cannot guarantee at this stage that a refined request will fall within the FOIA cost limit, or
that other exemptions will not apply.
For guidance on how to structure successful requests please refer to the ICO website on the
following li
nk: http://ico.org.uk/for_the_public/official_information
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/3244/pdfs/uksi_20043244_en.pdf
Appeal Rights
If you are not satisfied with this response you have the right to request an internal review by
responding in writing to one of the addresses below within two months of the date of this
response.
xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Disclosure Team, Ministry of Justice, 10.25, 102 Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ
You do have the right to ask the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to investigate any
aspect of your complaint. However, please note that the ICO is likely to expect internal
complaints procedures to have been exhausted before beginning their investigation.
Yours sincerely
Tristan McAlpine
Enquiries Officer, Dissemination and Enquiries Team
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