Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD), due to its size and complexity, does not operate a central team responsible for answering all Freedom of Information (FOI) requests received by the Department nor is there a central budget for handling FOI requests. Every business area within MOD plays a part in managing FOI requests who wholly or in part contribute to the processing of FOI requests, including Departmental Secretariats who also have responsibility for Parliamentary correspondence.

Given this, annual costs are not held and are subsumed into each Defence organisations business operating budgets and it would not be possible to make an estimate of the annual cost of this work.