Departmental Freedom of Information

Sarah Teather
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 his Department received in 2008; and how many of these received a substantive response within 20 days.

Paul Goggins
The following table provides details of the number of requests received by the Northern Ireland Office in 2008 and the number of requests which received a substantive response within 20 working days.

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|                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |Number|
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|Requests received                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |179   |
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|Requests which received a substantive response within 20 working days                                                                                                                                                                                          |132   |
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|Note:A further 26 requests were answered within permitted extensions to the 20 day deadline under the Freedom of Information Act; specifically, where the deadline for response was extended to allow consideration of the balance of the public interest test.|      |
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The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has committed to publishing quarterly and annual updates in relation to departmental performance under FOI, including information on both the volume and outcome of requests. The annual statistics for 2008 can be found in the Libraries of both Houses and on the MOJ website at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/freedomofinformationquarterly.htm