FOI release

Freedom of Information request (FOI 21-522)

Published 13 August 2021

15th June 2021 FOI 21/522

Dear

Thank you for your FOI request, dated 17th May 2021.

We have determined that the requested information is exempt from release 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 identify all members of MHRA who may have correspondence relating to your request and search their entire email and messaging history, extract these emails and messages and review them for any confidential information and redact as necessary. We consider that this would take longer than 24 working hours to complete.

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.

Kind regards,

FOI Team, Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines Division