Information Commissioner's Office

Cabinet Office

27 May 2008, Central government

The complainant asked the public authority for the contents of a file ‘PREM 8/928’ listed in the National Archives catalogue, which he believed dealt with United States Air Force facilities in the United Kingdom in 1948. In fact the file contained information about an entirely different issue, but the complainant indicated that he wanted to pursue the matter. The public authority concluded that all of the information was exempt under one or both of sections 23 and 27(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (‘the Act’). The Commissioner accepted the assurance of an independent senior official that most of the withheld information fell within section 23, but required the public authority to disclose some information to which it had applied section 27 alone.

FOI 27: Upheld