Security Group
National Offender Management
Service
Clive House
Ian Johnson
70 Petty France
London
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
SW1H 9EX
www.justice.gov.uk
20 September 2016
Our Reference: 107325
Freedom of Information Request
Dear Mr Johnson
Thank you for your email of 31 August 2016, in which you asked for the following
information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):
Could you please disclose a full list of items seized/confiscated from visitors at
the following prisons since September 2015.
Deerbolt.
Durham.
Frankland.
Holme House.
Kirklevington Grange.
Low Newton.
Could you please disclose as much detail as you have for each item, along
with where the items had attempted (I.e. An 8 inch kitchen knife - Deerbolt, 200
viagra tablet - Frankland etc)
Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
I can confirm that the MoJ holds the information that you have asked for. However,
because the cost of complying with your request would exceed the limit set by the
FOIA, on this occasion I'm afraid I will not be taking your request further.
It may help if I explain that only certain items of contraband that are found or
confiscated within prisons are mandated to be reported on the NOMS central Incident
Reporting System (IRS). Prior to October 2015, this was limited to “Finds” of mobile
phones, drugs and firearms, nor did the system identify the source of the contraband.
Since October 2015, an enhanced system has added weapons (additional to
firearms) and illicit brewed alcohol (hooch) to the list of mandatory reportable items.
Additionally, Items that are not mandated to be reported may be recorded locally or
reported centrally at the discretion of the prison. If centrally reported, the item would
be recorded on IRS as a miscellaneous incident. It is not possible to identify whether
a miscellaneous incident report relates to the find or confiscation of contraband
without manual interrogation of all miscellaneous incident reports during the
timeframe requested.
UNCLASSIFIED
The law allows us to decline to answer FOI requests when we estimate it would cost
us more than £600 (equivalent to 3½ working days’ worth of work, calculated at £25
per hour) to identify, locate, extract, and then provide the information that has been
asked for. We estimate that to carry out a data search as described above would
significantly exceed the cost limits set by the FOIA. In addition, we would need to
write to each of the establishments listed and ask them to search locally held hard
copy and electronic records of all items confiscated from visitors.
You can find out more about section 12(1) by reading the extract from the FOIA and
some guidance points we consider when applying this exemption, attached at the
end of this letter.
You can also find more information by reading the full text of the FOIA, available at
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12.
Although we cannot answer your request at the moment we might be able to respond
if you were to refine the question to bring it within the cost limits for data on non-
mandatory reportable items, for example, by limiting the request to items that have
been confiscated from visitors from one prison over a period of a week or month.
Please be aware that we cannot guarantee at this stage that a refined request will fall
within the FOIA cost limit.
I am sorry that on this occasion I have not been able to answer your request. You
have the right to appeal our decision if you think it is incorrect. Details can be found
in the ‘How to Appeal’ section attached at the end of this letter.
Disclosure Log
You can also view information that the MoJ has disclosed in response to previous
FOI requests. Responses are anonymised and published on our on-line disclosure
log which can be found on the MoJ website:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/foi-requests/latest-moj-disclosure-
log
The published information is categorised by subject area and in alphabetical order.
Yours sincerely
Security Department
National Offender Management Service
UNCLASSIFIED
How to appeal
Internal Review
If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to an internal review.
The handling of your request will be looked at by someone who was not responsible
for the original case, and they will make a decision as to whether we answered your
request correctly.
If you would like to request a review, please write or send an email 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 (10.34),
Information & Communications Directorate,
Ministry of Justice,
102 Petty France,
London
SW1H 9AJ
E-mail:
xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx
Information Commissioner’s Office
If you remain dissatisfied after an internal review decision, you have the right to apply
to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Commissioner is an independent
regulator who has the power to direct us to respond to your request differently, if he
considers that we have handled it incorrectly.
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 address:
https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us.aspx
UNCLASSIFIED
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT SECTION 12(1)
We have provided below additional information about Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act. We have included some extracts from the legislation, as well as
some of the guidance we use when applying it. We hope you find this information
useful.
The legislation
Section 1: Right of Access to information held by public authorities
(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—
(a)
to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds
information of the description specified in the request, and
(b)
if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.
Section 12: Cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for
information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request
would exceed the appropriate limit.
(2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply
with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that
paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.
(3) In subsections (1) and (2) “the appropriate limit” means such amount as may be
prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation to different cases.
(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, in such circumstances as
may be prescribed, where two or more requests for information are made to a public
authority—
(a)
by one person, or
(b)
by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in
concert or in pursuance of a campaign,
the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the
estimated total cost of complying with all of them.
(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the purposes of this
section as to the costs to be estimated and as to the manner in which they are to be
estimated.
Guidance
The appropriate limit
The 'appropriate limit', for the purposes of section 12 of the Freedom of Information
Act has been set at:
£600 for central government and Parliament.
The hourly rate is set at £25 per person per hour.
The following activities may be taken into account when public authorities are
estimating whether the appropriate limit has been exceeded.
determining whether it holds the information requested
UNCLASSIFIED
locating the information or documents containing the information
retrieving such information or documents
extracting the information from the document containing it.
UNCLASSIFIED
