Immigration Enforcement Secretariat
Sandford House
41 Homer Road
Solihull
West Midlands
Mary Atkinson
B91 3QJ
request-913568-fc258f61
@whatdotheyknow.com
www.gov.uk/home-office
Friday 18 November 2022
Dear Mary Atkinson,
Re: Freedom of Information request – 72648
Thank you for your email of 3 November, in which you ask for information regarding
immigration enforcement visits conducted using unmarked vehicles. Your request, which is
outlined in full at the enclosed annex, have been handled as a request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
I am unable to confirm whether the Home Office does hold information within the scope of
your request. Under section 12(2) of the FOIA, the Home Office is not obliged to comply
with an information request where to do so would exceed the appropriate limit. We
estimate that the cost of identifying whether any information is held would exceed the
appropriate limit of £600 specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. We are therefore unable to comply with
your enquiry at this time.
The £600 limit is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates
to 24 hours of work per request. The cost of locating, retrieving and extracting information
can be included in the costs for these purposes. In this case the time taken to identify
whether information is held, would exceed this limit.
This is because, in order to respond to your request for information we would need to
conduct a manual review against all Immigration Enforcement visits within the specified
period to ascertain whether we can identify the information you have requested.
It is difficult for us to suggest how you could narrow your requests in relation the numbers
of enforcement visits conducted by unmarked vehicles. However, if you wish to submit a
revised request, we would be happy to consider it.
I should also point out that if you submit a revised request, it is possible that other
exemptions in the Act might apply.
If you are dissatisfied with this response, you may request an independent internal review
of our handling of your request by submitting a complaint within two months to
xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx, quoting reference
72648. If you ask for an internal review,
it would be helpful if you could say why you are dissatisfied with the response.
As part of any internal review the Department's handling of your information request would
be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you
were to remain dissatisfied after an internal review, you would have a right of complaint to
the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the FOIA.
A link to the Home Office Information Rights Privacy Notice can be found in the following
link. This explains how we process your personal information:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/information-rights-privacy-notice
Yours sincerely,
Immigration Enforcement Secretariat
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Freedom of Information request – 72648
Annex A
From: Chai Patel <xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Sent: 03 November 2022 08:50
To: FOI Requests <xxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx>
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Enforcement visits - Immigration Enforcement
vehicles
Dear Home Office,
Please consider the following as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. It relates to enforcement visits being carried out by unmarked
vehicles.
Please disclose the requested information for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and from January
2022 up until the date on which this request is responded to.
Please provide a breakdown of how many enforcement visits were carried out by
unmarked vehicles, compared to how many were carried out by marked Immigration
Enforcement vehicles. Please provide this data for all enforcement visits carried out across
the UK.
Yours faithfully,
Mary Atkinson
