Freedom of Information? That’ll be a tenner please

I thought that some of you would like to see a copy of a letter I received from Dorset Probation Service recently. I accept that they may not be used to dealing with that many Freedom of Information requests, but one would have thought the name of the Act might have given them a clue.

As you can see they have decided that I should be paying a £10 ‘administrative charge’. There is no explanation of how the Chief Officer has arrived at this figure, in fact I haven’t yet been told they actually hold the information I had asked for.

What would the Information Commissioner’s Office make of this letter? How should I respond? Your comments please.

UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments. I’m glad to see you were as outraged as I was. I sent them a letter over the weekend and I had a voicemail message yesterday apologising for the mistake - so I think we should forgive and forget.