DIO Sec-Sec PBFOI
Mr FWP Dawson
Secretariat
Defence Infrastructure Organisation
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Kingston Road
Sutton Coldfield
West Midlands
B75 7RL
Tel: +44 (0)121 311 2451
Fax: +44 (0)121 311 3809
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx
Ref. 03-11-2011-114125-005
www.mod.uk/DIO
1 December 2011
Dear Mr Dawson
Request for Information: Implementation of RWMAC Advice to Ministers
Thank you for your enquiry dated 3 November 2011. This was passed to the Defence
Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), the Ministry of Defence (MOD) body responsible for managing
the defence estate and has been dealt with under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000.
You asked for information relating to the MODs implementation of the recommendations contained
within the 2000 report entitled “RWMAC's Advice to Ministers on The Ministry of Defence's
Arrangements for Dealing with Radioactively Contaminated Land”. In particular you were
interested in the recommendations relating to the setting up of a database and maintenance
record.
I can confirm that the MOD holds information that falls within scope of your request.
Please find attached a copy of the original report along with the covering letter, a Loose Minute
with accompanying draft letter from Minister in response, and an up to date copy of the RWMAC
Action Plan. Please be advised that a copy of the final letter from Minister has not been able to be
located. I have been advised that RWMAC was disbanded a few years after the report was
published, and as such further correspondence on the topic has not been found. I also attach an
undated draft RWMAC Action Plan for your information, which is believed to have been produced
around the time of the original report being issued.
You will see from the undated draft document, that Defence Estates was to develop an Access
database in the short term to record summary information from Land Quality Assessments
(LQAs). In the longer term this was to be integrated into a MOD wide Environmental Information
System.
During the development of the database it was determined that the most appropriate solution was
to catalogue all LQAs, create an electronic copy of the LQA reports, link this information to the
‘Defence Property Gazetteer’ database, and create a layer on the MOD ‘Geographic online Data
for the Estate’ system that shows the geographical location of each LQA. Access to complete
reports exceeded the original brief of only including summary information in the database.
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 me in the first instance. If informal resolution is not
possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by
contacting the Head of Corporate Information, 2nd Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A
2HB (e-mail xxxxxxxxxx@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 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 website,
www.ico.gov.uk.
Yours sincerely
DE Sec-Sec PBFOI