Army Policy and Secretariat
Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom
Ref: Army/Sec/FOI2023/05180
E-mail:
xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Website:
www.army.mod.uk
Mr K Lee
request-975274-
23 May 2023
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Dear Mr Lee,
Thank you for your email of 23 April 2023 in which you requested the following information:
‘I would like to request a copy of the latest version of Army General & Administrative
Instructions Vol.2 Chapter 40 to understand the latest policy on the eligibility requirements of
British Nationals to enlist in the Army Reserve. Thank you.’
I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000. A search for the information has now been completed within the
Ministry of Defence, and I can confirm that the information in scope of your request is held and
can be found attached.
I can advise that some of the information in scope falls entirely within the scope of the
exemption provided for at Section 40 (Personal Data) of the FOIA and has been redacted.
Section 40(2) has been applied to some of the information in order to protect personal
information as governed by the Data Protection Act 2018.
Section 40(2) requires the Department to conduct a balancing exercise, this exercise
involves balancing the rights and interests of individuals against the legitimate interests in
disclosure, this is not the same as carrying out the public interest test associated with
certain exemptions in FOIA. The balancing exercise is carried out in order to decide whether
the absolute exemption in section 40(2) is engaged. In particular, there is no assumption of
disclosure in the legitimate interests test, as there is with qualified exemptions. The outcome
of the balancing exercise lay in withholding the third-party personal data identified in the
attached information.
If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the
first instance. Fol owing 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
xxxxxxxxxx@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,
Workforce 2
Army Policy & Secretariat