Written question asked by Norman Baker (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 11 January 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 4 February 2005. It was answered by Alun Michael (Labour) on Friday, 4 February 2005 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many e-mails were deleted by (a) her Department and (b) agencies for which her Department is responsible in (i) January 2004 and (ii) December 2004. - Includes fact that department only keeps backup tapes for its e-mail servers for six weeks and request disproportionate cost.

Answer: Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many e-mails were deleted by (a) her Department and (b) agencies for which her Department is responsible in (i) January 2004 and (ii) December 2004. [208682] Alun Michael: The Department only keeps backup tapes for its e-mail servers for six weeks, therefore the information requested in part (i) is not available. There are currently over 13,000 mailboxes on around 90 servers, each of which would need to be restored and individually interrogated to gather this information, therefore due to the disproportionate cost it would involve, it has not been possible to comply with part (ii) of the request. Guidance issued from the head of the home civil service to all Departments in July 2004 provided a clear cross-departmental approach to the handling of e-mail correspondence, and a copy is available in the Library of the House.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 208682; 430 c1130-1W
Session: 2004-05
Subjects: Executive agencies Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Government departments Email
Contains statistics: Yes
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk