Freedom of Information request about the contract register (FOI-21-275)
Published 28 May 2021
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Thank you for your information request, dated 16 March , where you asked questions in relation to the Contract Register.
I can confirm that the MHRA does hold some of the information that you have requested. However, we have also determined that the information is exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and we cannot process your request any further.
Section 12 of the Act allows public authorities to refuse requests where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 24 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.
In order to process your request, we would need to: spend considerable time manually retrieving information for our e-sourcing and finances systems that isn’t readily available and compiling and adding this information to the contracts register. We consider that this would take longer than 24 working hours to complete.
We advise that you narrow your request by, for example, focusing on high level information that is readily available for all contracts and doesn’t require manual retrieval from our e-sourcing and financial systems (eg contract descriptions, Contract owners and CPV codes) whilst reviewing contract information that is in the public domain by virtue of it being published on Contracts Finder.
Please note that substantially similar requests made within 60 working days of an original request can be aggregated into one for the purposes of calculating a cost limit, meaning that section 12 could still apply.
If you disagree with how we have interpreted the Freedom of Information Act 2000 with regards to your request, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed. The review would be carried out by a senior member of the Agency who was not involved with the original decision.
If you have a query about the information provided, please reply to this email.
Yours sincerely
MHRA Customer Service Centre
Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 4PU