Control Orders Gloucestershire
The Home Office received a Freedom of Information request regarding persons subject to control orders being sent to Gloucestershire. We released…
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The Home Office received a Freedom of Information request regarding persons subject to control orders being sent to Gloucestershire.
We released the following information on 30 March 2010.
How many persons subject to control orders have been sent to Gloucestershire in the last five years?
In the last five years one person subject to a control order has been required to be relocated to Gloucestershire. The Government does not comment on individual cases. However, a controlled person, under the terms of their control order, may be required to relocate to another residence, sometimes in a different area of the country, for national security reasons. These reasons are usually connected with removing an individual from his network of extremist contacts. A community impact assessment is undertaken by the police force where it is planned to relocate a person subject to a control order, this assessment is carefully considered by the Government in making a decision on where to relocate. The impact of relocation on the controlled person is also carefully considered in making such a decision.
A request for copies of all correspondence between the Home Office and any Gloucestershire MP on the subject of control orders in the last five years.
The Home Office has a ‘correspondence tracking system’ which holds (among other things) all correspondence to and from MPs dating back to 1 January 2007. Correspondence prior to this date has been deleted in line with the Home Office retention and disposal policy in relation to such material. An extensive search on this system for any Home Office correspondence with any Gloucestershire MP on the subject of control orders has revealed that there has been none since 1 January 2007.
A further search has been conducted of the electronic and paper files held by the Home Office unit that deals with control orders. This search covered the last five years and also reveals no record of any correspondence with any Gloucestershire MP on the subject of control orders. Therefore the Home Office does not hold the information you have requested.
A request for copies of all correspondence between the Home Office and any Gloucestershire MP on the subject of terrorist suspects in the last five years.
In respect of this request we have taken the subject to mean correspondence regarding individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism (and not correspondence on broader matters of terrorism policy). After an extensive search of the Home Office correspondence tracking system, we can confirm that there has been no correspondence with any Gloucestershire MP’s on the subject of terrorist suspects since 1 January 2007. As mentioned above, correspondence prior to this date has been deleted from this system in line with the Home Office retention and disposal policy in relation to such material.
We have estimated that conducting further searches to ascertain whether there has been any correspondence with Gloucestershire MPs on the subject of terrorist suspects between March 2005 and January 2007 would exceed the cost limit of £600 specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office is not obliged to comply with an information request where we estimate that the cost of complying with it would exceed this cost limit. We are therefore unable to comply with this aspect of your request.
The £600 limit is based on work being carried out at a rate of £25 per hour, which equates to 24 hours of work per request. The cost of locating, retrieving and extracting information and preparing the response can be included in the costs for these purposes. The costs do not include considering whether any information is exempt from disclosure, overheads such as heating or lighting, or items such as photocopying or postage.