Information Commissioner's Office

Cabinet Office

13 August 2007, Central government

The complainant asked the public authority for information about a meeting at Downing Street in February 2002 to discuss the NHS IT modernization project. The public authority provided some background briefing information but withheld the rest, citing the exemptions in sections 21 and 35(1)(a) and (d) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘the Act’). After the Commissioner’s intervention the public authority released some further information. The Commissioner has decided that the public authority was justified in withholding the information to which it applied section 21. However, he has decided that the balance of the public interest favours disclosure of the information covered by section 35(1). Accordingly, the Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose that information within 35 calendar days of this notice. The Commissioner also concluded that the public authority had breached section 1(1)(a) of the Act in failing to give the complainant adequate written notification about whether it held information of the description specified in the request, and section 17(3) because it failed to explain its application of the public interest test adequately. An appeal was made to the Tribunal but later withdrawn.

FOI 17: Upheld