i Air Command Secretariat Spitfire Block Headquarters Air Command Royal Air Force High Wycombe Buckinghamshire HP14 4UE Ref: FOI2020/05656 Mr K.J Hill [by e-mail] [email protected] 17 July 2020 Dear Mr Hill, Thank you for your e-mail of 14 May 2020 requesting the following information: “Following an FOIA request into Engineering Officers (Ref: FOI2019/11162), if the information is available, I wish to make a similar FOIA request for RAF Legal Officers. In particular, I would be grateful for any of the following information from 2015 until present: 1) a) The number of applicants who apply for the role of Legal Officer per year; i) The percentage of applicants who are solicitors; ii) The percentage of applicants who are barristers; b) Of those applicants, the percentage who get selected for Initial Officer Training; c) Of those applicants, the percentage who successfully complete Initial Officer Training. 2) a) The current number of Legal Officers in total; b) The current number of Legal Officers posted in Cyprus; c) The current number of Legal Officers posted to the Service Prosecuting Authority at RAF Northolt; d) The current number of Legal Officers posted to the RAF Service Complains Team at RAF High Wycombe; e) The current number of Legal Officers posted to other RAF stations not already mentioned.” I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). A search for the information has now been completed within the Ministry of Defence (MOD), and I can confirm that some information within scope of your request is held. The information you have requested at points 1a), b) and c) can be found in the Table below: No. of % selected for No. of Solicitors % No. of Barristers Specialist Year Successful Applicants Officer Initial (% of after SOIT (% of applicants Training (SOIT) applicant) 2015 70 Unknown Unknown 7.2% Unknown 2016 70 Unknown Unknown None None 2017 40 83% 17% 4.80% 100% 2018 40 95% 5% 7.70% 100% 2019 40 89% 11% 2.60% 100% 2020 (to 20 84% 16% n/a n/a 4/6) Please note that intake to Phase 1 training date may not be within the same year as the application. The information you have requested at points 2 a) to 2 e) can be found in the Table below: Total RAF Legal Branch 50 Of which are Posted to Cyprus ~ RAF Northolt (Service Prosecuting Authority) ~ RAF High Wycombe (Service Complaints Team) ~ RAF High Wycombe 10 RAF Coningsby ~ RAF Brize Norton ~ RAF Waddington ~ Other MOD Units* 10 *Other MOD units (Shrivenham, Military Aviation Authority, Defence Safety Authority, Permanent Joint Headquarters & Standing Force Joint Headquarters), North Atlantic Treaty Organisation assignments (Naples, Brunnsum & Ramstein), as well as other Government Departments and exchange posts. Due to the small populations generated by this level of detail, and the possibility of identifying individual personnel, data has been rounded to 10 and therefore totals may not always equal the sum of the parts. When rounding to the nearest 10, numbers ending in 5 have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias."-" denotes zero and "~" denotes a number less than or equal to 5. Percentages have not been rounded. Please accept my apologies for the lateness of this response. This was due to remote working and reduced staffing levels under the current Covid-19 restrictions that have created significant delays in processing requests. Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you are not satisfied with this response or wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance at the address above. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Information Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail CIO-FOI- [email protected]). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end. If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not normally investigate your case until the MOD internal process has been completed. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner’s website at https://ico.org.uk/ Yours sincerely Air Command Secretariat .