Information Commissioner's Office

Summary: The complainant requested recorded information from the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office failed to issue an appropriate response for more than eleven months. The Commissioner has provided the Cabinet Office with a number of opportunities to issue an appropriate response and it has failed to do so. The Commissioner finds that the Cabinet Office has breached a number of provisions of the Act. It has breached section 10(1) for failing to comply with its obligations under section 1 of the Act within the statutory timescales. It has breached section 17(1) in failing to issue a complete refusal notice in the statutory timescales. It has also breached section 17(1)(c) for failing to explain why the exemptions it cited applied. Finally, it breached section 17(3) for the unacceptable delay in communicating the results of its public interest determination. The Cabinet Office is required to issue a refusal notice to the requestor explaining why any exemption is engaged and where it believes the balance of the public interest lies. If the public authority concludes that the balance of the public interest favours disclosing the information or no longer considers the exemption to apply, the information should be provided to the complainant.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: FOI 1 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 10 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 17 - Complaint Upheld