Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has referred any Freedom of Information requests received by his Department to the central Cabinet Office Clearing House on Freedom of Information requests for advice on handling, in the last two years.

I can confirm that the Ministry of Justice has referred a number of Freedom of Information requests to the Clearing House during the last two years.

Any FOI requests which are referred to the Clearing House are done so in line with the published criteria available on gov.uk. The Clearing House, which has been in existence since 2004, provides advice to ensure a consistent approach across government to requests for information.

The Ministry of Justice consistently receives some of the highest volumes of Freedom of Information requests compared to other Government Departments and has sustained performance above the Information Commissioner’s timeliness target of 90% for 43 consecutive months.