Request
Please provide a list with the following information:
1) The name of every item registered as missing from the National Archives
2) The date the National Archives obtained the above items
3) The date the Archives recorded the items as missing
4) If applicable, the price the Archives paid for the above items
Clarification: My request is concerning archival items and records only.
Outcome
Information withheld.
Response
1) The name of every item registered as missing from the National Archives
This information is exempt under Section 21 of the FOI Act. This information has been published via a transparency web-page: National Archives – Misplaced Items
2) The date the National Archives obtained the above items
This information is exempt under Section 12 of the FOI Act. This is because the cost of compliance will exceed this limit. However, if you wish to submit a new and refined request for a reduced list of items from the published list, you are entitled to do so. For example, if there is a specific record series or a particular record that you have a specific interest in, we may be able to provide this information upon a reassessment of whether this is possible within the cost limit.
3) The date the Archives recorded the items as missing
This information is exempt under Section 21 of the FOI Act. This information has been published via our transparency web-page: National Archives – Misplaced Items
4) If applicable, the price the Archives paid for the above items
This is not applicable. The National Archives is a government department that collects public records from other government departments in order to preserve them and make them available to the public. We do this as part of our statutory activities under the Public Records Act 1958. The Keeper may occasionally accept gifts of documents to be added to the collection, without payment. The National Archives’ statement of public task contains further information about our activities and can be found at:
National Archives – Statement of Public Task
Explanatory Annex
Exemptions applied
Section 12: Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit
Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed an appropriate limit, which for central government departments like The National Archives, is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of 24 hours of work, set at a flat rate of £25 per hour. This is for determining whether the information is held, as well as locating, retrieving and extracting the information. We estimate that it will take us in excess of this time to identify the information requested in question 2.
You may wish to consider refining your request, however please note that we are unable to guarantee that any refined requests would fall within the cost limit. Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found at:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1199/costs_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf
Section 21: Information readily available to the applicant by other means
Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) does not oblige a public authority to provide information if it is already reasonably accessible by other means.
In this case the exemption applies because the information is already published and can be found on The National Archives transparency page: National Archives – Misplaced Items
Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found at: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1203/information-reasonably-accessible-to-the-applicant-by-other-means-sec21.pdf