Summary: The complainant made requests to the Child Support Agency, now part of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (-˜CMEC-™), for a variety of statistical information about its dealings with its clients. The Child Support Agency disclosed some information to the complainant, but stated that it did not record the rest of the requested information. The Commissioner has investigated the remaining elements of the request and concluded that some of the requested information is not held by CMEC, but that it does hold information relating to two of the requests. The Commissioner has also concluded that to comply with each of those two requests would require CMEC to exceed the appropriate limit under section 12(1) of the Act and that therefore it is not obliged to comply with the requests as a whole. However, CMEC should offer the complainant advice and assistance under section 16 of the Act in relation to one of the requests. The Commissioner also finds that CMEC breached section 1(1)(a), section 10(1) and section 17(5) of the Act in its handling of the requests. Information Tribunal appeal number EA/2010/0022 struck out.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: FOI 1 - Complaint Partly Upheld, FOI 10 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 12 - Complaint Not upheld, FOI 16 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 17 - Complaint Upheld