Central FOI Unit
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London SW1A 2AH
Website:
https://www.gov.uk
Dr Emma L Briant
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
30th January 2020
Dear Dr Emma L Briant
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - REQUEST REF: FOI2020/00111
Thank you for your email of 21st January asking for information under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) 2000. You asked:
Please could I see al a ful list of any projects undertaken or bid for on
research/TAA/Strategic communication projects by Behavioural Dynamics, Harrington
Oakes, Retail Dynamics or Universal Live Communications between 1993 and 2005 -
including project description, dates, and how much any specific contract was funded for.
I can confirm that the FCO may hold information relevant to your request.
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse
requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate
limit. The limit has been specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. For central government the appropriate limit
is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one or more persons spending 3 ½
working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting it. Your request as presently formulated is widely-framed and I
estimate that it will take more than 3 ½ working days to locate, retrieve and extract this
information. In these circumstances we are not obliged under the Act to comply with your
request. You may therefore wish to refine your request to narrow its scope to bring it within
the appropriate limit. We recommend that you refine the time period three years. We wil also
require more information about the information you are looking for. Please can you let us
know what TAA stands for and what field/geographical area these companies operate in e.g.
communication, HR, technical etc.
Please note that any new request wil be given a separate reference number and we wil
then consider whether we can provide the information requested within the appropriate cost
limit. This would of course be subject to the consideration of whether any of the other
exemptions under the FOI Act apply.
If you would like to request a review of our decision, or if you wish to make a complaint,
please write to the Central FOI Unit at Room WH2.177, King Charles Street, London SW1A
2AH, or by e-mail to
xxxxxxx.xxxx@xxx.xxx.xx. Please note that you have 40 working days
from the date of this letter in which to submit a request for an internal review.
You can apply directly to the Information Commissioner. However, the Information
Commissioner wil not normal y make a decision unless you have first exhausted the
complaints procedure provided by the FCO. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely,
Central FOI Unit
For information about how the FCO handles personal information please see our
Personal Information Charter
