Request
This is a freedom of information request for the following:
1) The total number of closed records held by The National Archives.
2) The total number of closed records on ‘whole life order’ prisoners (formerly known as ‘whole life tariff’ prisoners) held by The National Archives.
3) The criteria used by The National Archives for maintaining closed records on ‘whole life order’ prisoners (formerly known as ‘whole life tariff’ prisoners).
4) The number of times The National Archives has consulted a government department in the past 5 years about releasing information held in a closed record about a prisoner.
5) The number of times The National Archives has, after receiving an FOI request, released information about a prisoner in the past 5 years that previously formed part of a closed record.
6)Jeremy Nevill BAMBER: murder of Daniel CAFFELL, Nicholas CAFFELL, Ralph Nevill BAMBER,… | The National Archives
In respect of the above: are you able to say which government agency/person/persons ordered the embargo?
Outcome
Some information provided.
Response
1. The total number of closed records held by The National Archives.
As of 8 September 2021, Discovery, The National Archives’ online catalogue, has entries for 339,809 closed records that are held by The National Archives. Please note, this number frequently changes as records are opened or closed records are transferred to us.
2. The total number of closed records on ‘whole life order’ prisoners (formerly known as ‘whole life tariff’ prisoners) held by The National Archives.
The National Archives does not hold a list of ‘whole-life order’ prisoners, nor are records categorised by ‘prisoner’ or ‘whole-life order prisoner’. We are therefore unable to confirm the total number of closed records which relate to such individuals.
Advice and assistance:
If you hold a list of ‘whole-life order’ prisoners, you can search their names in Discovery to identify records relating to them. Using the filter tools you can refine the results to only show closed records. However, as noted above, records at The National Archives are not categorised by ‘prisoner’ or ‘whole-life order prisoner’, and so a separate search would need to be carried out for each individual. Furthermore, this method of searching will only identify records where the individual’s name is included in the file description.
The PCOM 9 series, which relates to prisons, may be of interest to you, however, records relating to prisoners can be found in a range of different other series including DPP, J, CRIM and ASSI. For further information, please see our Research Guide – Prisoners and Prison Staff and Prisons.
3. The criteria used by The National Archives for maintaining closed records on ‘whole life order’ prisoners (formerly known as ‘whole life tariff’ prisoners)
The National Archives does not hold this information. This is because we do not utilise specific criteria for the maintenance of closed records relating to ‘whole-life order’ prisoners.
Advice and assistance:
All records are reviewed on a case by case basis in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). Guidance on freedom of information exemptions and when information can be refused can be found here.
It is the responsibility of the transferring department to sensitivity review records ahead of transfer to The National Archives as outlined in part 3 of the Code of Practice on the management of records issued under section 46 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Closed records that have already been transferred are reviewed by The National Archives in response to Freedom of Information requests. In accordance with section 66 of the FOIA, The National Archives reviews records in consultation with the government department which transferred it to us.
4. The number of times The National Archives has consulted a government department in the past 5 years about releasing information held in a closed record about a prisoner.
Freedom of Information requests are not categorised by the subject of the closed record and so each request that The National Archives has received in the last five years would need to be manually checked to determine whether it related to a prisoner. Please note, The National Archives is required to consult the government department which transferred the record to us as laid out in section 66 of the FOIA.
Between 2016 and 2020, The National Archives received over 15,000 FOI requests. We are therefore unable to confirm the number of times The National Archives may have consulted a government department in the past 5 years about releasing information held in a closed record about a prisoner as the cost of locating, retrieving and extracting the requested information exceeds the appropriate limit. Consequently this information is exempt from release under section 12 of the FOI Act, please see explanatory annex for further details on why this applies here.
5.The number of times The National Archives has, after receiving an FOI request, released information about a prisoner in the past 5 years that previously formed part of a closed record.
As per our explanation provided for question 4, Freedom of Information requests are not categorised by the subject of the closed record and so each request would need to be manually checked to determine whether it related to a prisoner and whether information was released.
Please note that between 2016 and 2020, The National Archives received over 15,000 FOI requests. We are therefore unable to confirm the number of times The National Archives may have, after receiving an FOI request, released information about a prisoner in the past 5 years that previously formed part of a closed record as the cost of locating, retrieving and extracting the requested information exceeds the appropriate limit.
Consequently this information is exempt from release under section 12 of the FOI Act.
6. Jeremy Neville BAMBER: murder of Daniel CAFFELL, Nicholas CAFFELL, Ralph Neville BAMBER,… | The National Archives
In respect of the above: are you able to say which government agency/person/persons ordered the embargo?
The National Archives currently holds 230 closed records with Jeremy Bamber identified in the file description.
The records identified in our search are:
DPP 2/11679-11904 – Crown Prosecution Service
HO 287/4157/2-/4 – Home Office
J 82/4321/3 – Ministry of Justice
As previously noted, all records are reviewed on a case by case basis in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), either ahead of transfer by the government department who created the record, or post transfer through FOI request process, reviewed by The National Archives and in consultation with the transferring authority.
For the examples listed above these departments include, Ministry of Justice, Home Office and Crown Prosecution.
Catalogue Search for closed records
Research Guide: Prisoners and Prison Staff
Research Guide: Prisons
Freedom of Information Act 2000
ICO Guidance: Refusing a Request
National Archives guidance on Sensitivity Reviews
Freedom of Information Code of Practice
Catalogue search for Jeremy Bamber