Dear Mr Taylor,

Freedom of Information request F17-465

Thank you for your request for information dated 7 November 2017, received
by us on the same date, which is copied below.

We will endeavour to respond to your request promptly but in any case
within 20 working days i.e. on or before 6 December 2017.

If you have any queries about your request, please use the request number
quoted above and in the subject line of this email.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Price

IRIS Support Officer
Information Rights and Information Security (IRIS) Service | House of
Commons

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Dear Mr Taylor,

Freedom of Information request F17-465

Thank you for your request for information as copied below. You asked two
questions related to Blackcube Strategy Limited, which we have sought to
address below. Please note that, although the House of Commons and the
House of Lords are separate public authorities in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), both our Digital Service (PDS) and
Security Departments (PSD) are bicameral teams, so our response covers the
whole of Parliament.

You asked if the name Blackcube has ever appeared in any parliamentary
record accessible by an electronic search system. Parliamentary records
may be held in a number of different electronic repositories. Our main
repositories are the Parliamentary Archives, the House of Commons Library
and our website, where a large amount of information is made available to
the public for the purposes of transparency. No information relevant to
your request is held in these repositories.

Parliamentary teams may also hold electronic information in a number of
other areas, however these records are only searchable by the teams
themselves and/or (in some cases) individuals, depending on the levels of
security required. There is no central search possible with these records,
so to retrieve any relevant data, we would have to contact a very large
number of staff and teams and ask them to manually check and retrieve it.
We estimate that the cost of complying with this part of your request
would exceed the appropriate limit specified in section 12 of the FOIA,
which for the House of Commons is £600 or 24 working hours.

Consequently, the House is not obliged to comply with your request and we
will not be processing your request further. However, if you wish to make
a new request for a narrower category of information, it may be that we
could comply with that request within the appropriate limit, although I
cannot guarantee that this will be the case. For example, you could refine
your request to limited the request to specific parliamentary teams or
individuals and ask for a smaller time period to be interrogated.

You have also asked if Parliament has ever used the services of Blackcube
Strategy Limited in any capacity. This information is not held by the
House of Commons as the House has never used this company in any capacity.

You may, if dissatisfied with the handling of your request, complain to
the House of Commons. Alternatively, if you are dissatisfied with the
outcome of your request you may ask the House of Commons to conduct an
internal review of any decision regarding your request. Complaints or
requests for internal review should be addressed to: Information Rights
and Information Security Service, Research and Information Team, House of
Commons, London SW1A 0AA or [1][House of Commons Commission request email]. Please ensure
that you specify the full reasons for your complaint or internal review
along with any arguments or points that you wish to make.

If you remain dissatisfied, you may appeal to the Information Commissioner
at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF,
[2]www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Price

IRIS Support Officer
Information Rights and Information Security (IRIS) Service | House of
Commons

[3]cid:image002.jpg@01D02B64.34D76640

Click [4]here for details about Freedom of Information

in the House of Commons and to see what we publish.

show quoted sections