Information Commissioner's Office

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

30 September 2008, Central government

The complainant requested from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) information about the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project. He was denied access to information in 272 documents held by FCO. There were major delays due to FCO’s handling of the matter which were compounded by delays within ICO. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, FCO released the majority of the information requested. The Commissioner decided that there had been breaches by FCO of both the Act and the EIR. A list of the relevant documents and exemptions and exceptions was agreed by the Commissioner’s staff with FCO officials. He decided that some, but not all, of the information is environmental within the meaning of Regulation 2(1)(a) and 2(1)(c) of the EIR. As regards the Act, he decided that FCO was in breach of section 1(1)(b) of the Act in wrongly withholding some of the information requested and in not providing information about the documents that were being withheld. FCO was in breach of section 10(1) of the Act in not complying with section 1(1) of the Act within 20 working days. FCO was in breach of section 17(1) of the Act in refusing to provide information outside the timescale set out in section 10(1). FCO had correctly applied the exemptions contained in sections 27(1)(a), 27(1)(b) and 27(1)(d) when withholding the relevant information and in those cases the public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information. FCO had correctly applied the exemptions contained in sections 35(1)(a) and 35(1)(b) when withholding the relevant information and in those cases the public interest in maintaining the exemptions outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information. The Commissioner decided that the section 41 exemption applied to information in two documents that FCO had withheld by incorrectly applying other exemptions. As regards the EIR, the Commissioner decided that FCO’s delays in considering the request and responding to it were in breach of EIR Regulations 5(2), 7(2) and 14(2). The failure to specify in the form of a schedule what information was being withheld was a further breach of EIR Regulation 5(2). FCO’s delays in reviewing its refusal of the complainant’s request were in breach of Regulation 11(4). FCO had correctly applied the exception contained in Regulation 12(4)(e) when withholding the relevant information and the public interest in maintaining the exception outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information. FCO had correctly applied the exception contained in Regulation 12(5)(e) when withholding the relevant information and the public interest in maintaining the exception outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information. FCO had correctly applied the exception contained in Regulation 12(5)(f) when withholding the relevant information and the public interest in maintaining the exception outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information.

FOI 10: Upheld FOI 17: Upheld FOI 27: Not upheld