Information Commissioner's Office

Rotherham NHS Primary Care Trust

23 April 2007, Health (NHS)

The complainant and his partner made a series of requests to the public authority under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the FOI Act”), and complained to the Commissioner about the public authority’s response to two of these requests. The complainant requested the minutes of a meeting that he alleged had taken place between employees of the public authority, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and South Yorkshire Police in October 2002. The public authority refused to confirm or deny whether it held this information, citing section 40(5). The complainant also requested information pertaining to the identity of the line manager of an employee of the public authority. Although the public authority provided him with information in response to this request, the complainant questioned the accuracy of this information and asked the Commissioner to investigate this. As the FOI Act does not give the Commissoner powers to investigate the quality of information held or provided by a public authority, he did not make a decision on the quality of the information provided. The Commissioner did, however, consider whether the public authority provided the complainant with the information it held in relation to his request, in compliance with section 1. In regard to the first of the requests the Commissioner concluded that section 40(5) did not apply, and that the public authority should have informed the complainant whether it held the information requested or not. In failing to do so, it contravened the requirements of section 1(1)(a) of the FOI Act. In regard to the second request the Commissioner was satisfied that the public authority provided the applicant with the information it held in relation to the information he had requested. However, the Commissioner also found that the public authority did not comply with section 10 of the FOI Act, as it did not respond to these requests within 20 working days. In consequence, the complaint is partially upheld.

FOI 1: Partly upheld