FOI release

Freedom of Information request (FOI 22/980)

Published 17 January 2024

18th October 2022

FOI 22/980

Dear

Thank you for your information request, dated 20th September 2022, where you asked for release of all emails received or sent by MHRA relating to the following search to be completed:

I would like to restrict the search to the two queries below. Please advise if either these queries are difficult to execute or if this still captures too many emails.

Emails which contain the non-case-sensitive strings, where “AND” and “OR” are logical operators, parentheses indicate the order of operation, and dates are inclusive:

1)

(

(00190A OR recall)

AND

(Moderna OR Spikevax OR Rovi OR Takeda OR contamination OR steel OR magnet OR

particulate)

)

between the dates of 10 Jan 2022 and 10 May 2022

2)

(

(3004667 OR 3004734 OR 3004956 OR recall) AND (Moderna OR Spikevax OR Rovi OR

Takeda OR contamination OR steel OR magnet OR particulate)

)

between the dates of 1 August 2021 to 1 November 2021

I can confirm that the MHRA does 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 attempting to extract emails to review, our IT department ran the exact searches you had requested. This resulted in a total of 381,425 items being identified which constituted 431.3GB of data for the first search, and 357,739 items, constituting 465GB of data, for the second search. It appears that the searches our IT department conducted include in the results large quantities of metadata, and it has not been possible to separate out emails from the results. Whilst we do not believe that this number is representative of the total number of emails that are specifically in scope of your requests, in order to ensure that pertinent emails were extracted accurately a manual review of each item would be required, which would take in excess of the 24 hours allowed.

We advise that you consider narrowing your request further, for example, removing the inclusion of some of the ‘or’ search criteria (the narrower the better).

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 have a query about the information provided, please reply to this email

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date you receive this response and addressed to: [email protected]

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you were to remain dissatisfied with the outcome of the internal review, you would have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Please bear in mind that the Information Commissioner will not normally review our handling of your request unless you have first contacted us to conduct an internal review. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Yours sincerely,

MHRA FOI Team