Army Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
Ref: FOI2019/07949/10/05
E-mail:
xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Website: www.army.mod.uk
Mr Joe Fisher
request-582776-
7 August 2019
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Mr Fisher
Thank you for your email of 8 July, providing ID for your request for the following information:
1. total number of CFVA on strength, for the last 5 years
2. total number of VA days paid, for the last 5 years
3. amount of VA over spend or under spend, for the last 5 years
Please provide this for the following cadet force counties in 7 brigade
Lincolnshire
Derbyshire
Nottinghamshire
Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) 2000 and I have therefore considered whether the Department holds any recorded
information relating to your request. I can confirm that MOD holds some information relating to your
request. However, I have to advise you that we will not be able to answer your request without
exceeding the appropriate limit. It is estimated that this would take in excess of 60 hours of
combined effort and is therefore exempt under Section 12 of the FOI Act.
Section 12(1) of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information
where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central
government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working
days in determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and
extracting it. The MOD may be able to provide some information in scope of your request if you
reduce or refine your request to bring the cost of compliance under the limit. For example, the
Department may be able to provide you with information if you were to request the total amount
spent on reimbursing volunteers. It may help if I explain that, although we hold information relating
to spend, it is not directly translatable into the number of volunteer days reimbursed. Although units
will hold records of when each volunteer turned up for a duty day, extracting this information for the
last 5 years would breach the cost limit of the Act.
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the first
instance. Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of your request, or the content
of this response, you can request an independent internal review by contacting the Information
Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail CIO-
xxxxxx@xxx.xx). Please note that any request for an internal review should be made within 40
working days of the date of this response.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint directly to the
Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
Please note that the Information Commissioner will not normally investigate your case until the
MOD internal review process has been completed. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be
found on the Commissioner's website at https://ico.org.uk/.
Yours sincerely,
Manning Leader
Army Secretariat