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OMDlAD(Efficiency & Machinery of Government)<br />
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE<br />
Room 617, Northumberland House, Northumberland Avenue,<br />
London WC2N SBP<br />
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Telephone (Direct dial) ~ ELi! j<br />
(Switchboard) 2o-72t8-00w-<br />
(Fax)<br />
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Your Reference<br />
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Our Reference<br />
Date 26 July 2000<br />
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~u for your letter of 20 July to I have recently taken over<br />
from~s post and am now responsible for implementing MOD's policy on Open<br />
Government. I am sorry for the delay in replying but your letter was routed to~<br />
MOD internal mail system and was only delivered to me today.<br />
Your letter asked why you had not received an acknowledgement or a substantive<br />
reply to a letter written on 21 June requesting access to a series of files relating to UFOs<br />
and UFO policy. I have checked with the MOD officials in the MOD's Secretariat(Air<br />
Staff), who handled your request, and you may fmd it helpful to know the background to<br />
dealing with your request. Your letter of21 June was received in the Secretariat(Air Staff)<br />
on 23 June and they set about researching your request (which involved looking through a<br />
sample of the very many files concerned). In the event, this took rather longer than they<br />
expected and, when they realised that they were not going to be able to reply within the 20<br />
working day deadline, I understand they wrote to you explaining this and promising a<br />
substantive reply as soon as possible. This interim reply was sent on 20 July, which was<br />
19 working days after they had received your letter but 21 working days after you had<br />
posted it. A substantive reply was subsequently sent to you on 25 July, ie: 22 working<br />
days after they received your letter, which I hope you have now received.<br />
In retrospect, it would have been better if you had been sent an acknowledgement<br />
as soon as your letter had been delivered to the MOD official who was dealing with your<br />
case, and the Secretariat( Air Staff) accept this.<br />
I understand you are also in correspondence with MOD's Defence Records division<br />
over a request to view some Defence Intelligence files. I have asked that your request is<br />
processed as soon as possible.<br />
I hope this explains the position. If you have any other problems with requesting<br />
information from the MOD, either with the time taken to receive a reply or with the<br />
information provided, please let me know.
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