Freedom of Information request on emails with Bill & Melinda gates Foundation (FOI 20-534)
Published 24 March 2021
© Crown copyright 2021
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/freedom-of-information-responses-from-the-mhra-week-commencing-4-january-2021/freedom-of-information-request-on-emails-with-bill-melinda-gates-foundation-foi-20-534
Thank you for your information request, dated 5th December 2020 where you asked for all emails from and to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
I can confirm that the MHRA has received grant funding from the Bill and Melinda gates Foundation for specific activities. We do 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 identify all members of MHRA who have had correspondence with the Foundation and search their entire email history, extract these emails and review them for any confidential information and redact as necessary. We consider that this would take longer than 24 working hours to complete.
We advise that you narrow your request by, for example, by asking for details of a particular area of interest and timeframe.
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.
Kind regards,
Pharmacovigilance Service Team Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines Division Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency 10 South Colonnade, Canary Wharf, London E14 4PU Email: pharmacovigilanceservice@mhra.gov.uk Stay connected: mhra.gov.uk/stayconnected