Disclosure Team
Ministry of Justice
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ
xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx
Robert Thomas
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
16 November 2017
Dear Mr Thomas,
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request – FOI
171020009
Thank you for your request of 20 October 2017 in which asked for the following information
from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):
(
1) the average waiting times in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) from the filing of
an appeal to a permission to appeal decision for each year since 2005.
(2) the average waiting times in the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) from the filing of
an appeal to the issuing of a judgment for each year since 2005. If possible, please
could the above information be broken down into the types/categories of cases
received by the court.
(3) the number of public law cases that have been expedited each year since 2005 and
the average amount of time taken in such cases.
Your request has been handled under the FOIA.
I can confirm the MoJ holds 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.
The court’s database does not hold all the information requested. To obtain accurate
information would require manually checking all of the court records in the scope of the
request to identify the required data. We believe that the cost of locating, retrieving and
extracting the data would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to
comply with your request.
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.
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, reducing the
time period or the scope of your request. 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. Information held in court records is one such exemption under section 32 of the
FOIA.
For guidance on how to structure successful requests please refer to the ICO website on the
following link: 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.xxx.xx
Disclosure Team, Ministry of Justice, 10.38, 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
Knowledge & Information Liaison Officer
London & South East Regional Support Unit
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