Information Commissioner's Office

Salford Clinical Commissioning Group

30 July 2014, Education (Other)

The complainant has requested information relating to a procurement exercise for the NHS Salford Community Consultant Led Ophthalmology Service. Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG) confirmed that some of the requested information was not held, it provided the complainant with some information relevant to the scope of the request but refused to disclose some information under section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). The Commissioner’s decision is that Salford Clinical Commissioning Group correctly applied section 43(2) FOIA to some of the withheld information in this case. It has however incorrectly applied this exemption to the questions/responses within the ITT and PQQ which the successful bidder does not consider to be commercially sensitive. The Confidential Annex attached to this Notice sets out which questions/responses the successful bidder does consider to be commercially sensitive. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose the successful bidder’s responses to the questions in the ITT and PQQ at Part 1 of the request where the successful bidder has not indicated that it deems those questions/responses to be commercially sensitive. It should also disclose the information at Part 4 of the request or issue a refusal notice explaining why it is not obliged to do so.

FOI 43: Partly upheld