Ministry of Defence
Main Building
Whitehall
London SW1A 2HB
United Kingdom
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Ref: FOI2019/11365
James Jones
23 October 2019
request-608762-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Mr Jones
Thank you for your email of 2 October requesting the following information:
“On, or around, 30th November 2017 Mr David Green of the Scottish Crown Office sent you a
copy of a document, ‘Justification for Opening the Tornado FAI Case’. Please can you provide me
with a copy of the covering letter along with the MoD response.”
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 (FOIA).
This letter is to inform you that the MOD holds information related to your request, but that we
believe the information falls within the scope of the following exemptions: Section 28 (Internal
Relations) and Section 31 (Law Enforcement). S28 & S31 are qualified exemptions and as such it
is necessary for us to decide whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in
maintaining the exemptions outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
The Freedom of Information Act requires us to respond to requests promptly, and in any case no
later than 20 working days after receiving the request. However, when a qualified exemption
applies to the information and the public interest test has to be conducted, the Act allows the time
for responses to be longer than 20 working days.
A full response must be provided within such time as is reasonable in all circumstances of the case
and, in relation to your request, we estimate that it will take an additional 20 working days to take a
final decision on where the balance of public interest lies. We therefore plan to let you have a
response by 27 November 2019. If it appears that it will take longer than this to reach a conclusion,
we will let you know.
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 us in the first instance at the address above. If informal
resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent
internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main
Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail
xxxxxxxxxx@xxx.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 normally 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 websit
e, http://www.ico.org.uk. Yours sincerely
DSA Secretariat