Room 405
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
70 Whitehall
www.cabinet office.gov.uk
London, SW1A 2AS
Mike McKie
By email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
FOI Reference: FOI2020/07625
07/07/2020
Dear Mike McKie
I refer to your request where you asked:
“I would like to know (for the period of the latest Honours review 2015-2019) what
percentage of publicly nominated Honours nominees were awarded Honours - in other
words, of the total submissions received by the Cabinet Office for this period, what
number were awarded Honours.
If this information is not available, what is the proportion of recipients for the same
period that were nominated by the public?”
We have considered your request and can confirm that some of the information in
scope of this request is held by the Cabinet Office.
In regards to your question regarding the number of submissions received by the
Cabinet Office, the Honours and Appointments Secretariat receives around 3,500
nominations per year.
In relation to the exact total of nominations received by the Cabinet Office within the
period request, we consider that Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act applies.
Section 12 relieves public authorities of the duty to comply with a request for information
if the cost of dealing with it would exceed the appropriate limit.
The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for central Government. This
is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3 1/2 working
days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting it, below the appropriate limit. The work necessary to ascertain
the answers to the other questions you pose is prohibitively time-consuming as the
information is not held in the form that you request. Within our records, information
regarding nominations is not categorised by the year in which the Cabinet Office
received it. A change of IT system in 2019 means that this information is held in multiple
formats in multiple databases. In FOI terms answering this question would exceed the
cost of compliance as calculated by staff time costs under Section 12. In relation to al
your questions save the one mentioned above, your request is therefore refused under
that section of the Act. Additional y, some of this information is not held: the Cabinet
Office does not hold information on public nominations made to the FCO through its
public nomination process, nor nominations made by the public to other Government
departments.
The information you have requested relating to the number of successful nominations is
exempt under section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 21 exempts
information if this is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Section 21
is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to consider whether the
public interest favours disclosure of this information. Al honours lists are published on
the London Gazette website at www.thegazette.co.uk. Additional y, honours lists dating
back to New Year 2008 honours list are published at
www.gov.uk/government/col ections/honours-reform-and-operation and at
https://www.gov.uk/honours/honours-lists, which also provides the number of recipients
on each list who have undertaken outstanding work in their communities either in a
voluntary or paid capacity.
Final y, in regards to the proportion of honours recipients who were nominated in the
same period, I am able to provide some general information that may assist.
Nominations which are made by members of the public come directly to the Cabinet
Office. Alongside this, organisations, charities and businesses make nominations
directly to other government departments. As a complete record of al nominations is not
held by the Cabinet Office, and because nominations can be brought before the
independent honours committees numerous times before a final decision is made, we
are not able to answer the question relating to the total number of public nominations
which were successful within a particular timeframe.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request or wish
to request an internal review, you should write to:
Eirian Walsh Atkins
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS
email: xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
You should note that the Cabinet Office wil not normal y accept an application for
internal review if it is received more than two months after the date that the reply was
issued.
If you are not content with the outcome of your internal review, you may apply directly to
the Information Commissioner for a decision. General y, the Commissioner cannot
make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by
Cabinet Office. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
FOI Team
Cabinet Office
