Army Secretariat

Army Headquarters
IDL 24 Blenheim Building
Marlborough Lines
Andover
Hampshire, SP11 8HJ
United Kingdom

Ref: FOI2019/01764 E-mail: ArmySec-Group@mod.gov.uk

Website: www.army.mod.uk

Name: 5 April 2019

Email: @soas.ac.uk

Dear ,

Thank you for your email of 3 January in which you requested the following information:

1.) The total amount, in pounds sterling, that the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit has paid in funds,
including, but not limited to, philanthropic gifts or fees for briefing, training, consultancy, analysis or
research, to the School of Oriental and African Studies in the last eight financial years. Details,
including the purpose of the funds, should be broken down, year-by-year.
2.) If SOAS has provided briefing, consultancy, training, analysis or research to the Defence Cultural
Specialist Unit at any time during the last five years, please provide:
(1) copies of the agendas or programmes for the sessions, including topics discussed and the
names and departments of SOAS staff providing the briefings, and
(2) copies of the briefing or research documents, including Powerpoint presentations,
memoranda and research papers, presented by SOAS staff to the Defence Cultural Specialist
Unit.

I am treating your correspondence as a request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) 2000.

A search for the information has now been completed within the Ministry of Defence, and I can
confirm that some/ the information in scope of your request is held and is below and attached:

1.) The total amount, in pounds sterling, that the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit has paid in funds,
including, but not limited to, philanthropic gifts or fees for briefing, training, consultancy, analysis or
research, to the School of Oriental and African Studies in the last eight financial years. Details,
including the purpose of the funds, should be broken down, year-by-year.

The Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU) delivers Regional Studies Weeks (RSW) which are
designed and delivered on our behalf by SOAS.
Information on payments from the DCSU to SOAS for RSWs only extend back to May 2017. Costs
for the delivery of RSWs to date are:

£49,500 May 2017

£49,500 October 2017
£49,500 February 2018
£50,000 July 2018
£50,000 November 2018
£62,000 December 2018

The last RSW was delivered in February 2019, but the Department is not yet able to provide a final
cost figure for this event.
2.) If SOAS has provided briefing, consultancy, training, analysis or research to the Defence Cultural
Specialist Unit at any time during the last five years, please provide:

(1) copies of the agendas or programmes for the sessions, including topics discussed and the
names and departments of SOAS staff providing the briefings, and

Please find attached details of previous RSWs held by the MOD as requested above.

(2) copies of the briefing or research documents, including Powerpoint presentations,

memoranda and research papers, presented by SOAS staff to the Defence Cultural Specialist
Unit.

The MOD does not hold information relevant to this request. If you still wish to see these
documents produced by SOAS, it may be possible to access them by contacting the
university directly, or it may be in the public domain as peer-reviewed material.

If you have any queries regarding the content of this letter, please contact this office in the first
instance. Following this, if you wish to complain about the handling of your request, or the content
of this response, you can request an independent internal review by contacting the Information
Rights Compliance team, Ground Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail CIO-
FOI-IR@mod.uk). Please note that any request for an internal review should be made within 40
working days of the date of this response.

If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may raise your complaint directly 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 review 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,

Army Secretariat