Question
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many requests for information have been received by her Department since the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force; how many requests have had their deadline extended beyond 20 working days to allow consideration of where the public interest lies; and how many requests have been refused on public interest grounds.
Answer
The DCA publishes quarterly bulletins on the performance of central Government under the FOIA. The third of these reports, covering the period of 1 July to 30 September, was published on 15 December 2005, Official Report, 161WS, and has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the DCA's website.From 1 January to 30 September DCA has received 495 FOI requests. 61 of these requests have had the deadline extended beyond the statutory deadline of 20 working days to allow consideration of where the public interest lies. However, this figure includes 15 requests where the decision to extend on public interest grounds was taken after the 20 day statutory deadline had passed. This accounts for the inconsistency with the cumulative figure published in DCA's quarterly bulletins. A total of 83 requests have been refused on public interest grounds.