Information Commissioner's Office

Cabinet Office

22 July 2014, Central government

The complainant has requested a copy of a document entitled “Getting your Bill through the Lords”. The Cabinet Office refused citing section 35(1)(b) (Ministerial Communications). It upheld this at internal review. However, during the Commissioner’s investigation, it introduced reliance on section 35(1)(a) (Formulation and development of government policy) and section 40(2)(Unfair disclosure of personal data). The Commissioner’s decision is that the majority of the information should be disclosed. He has found the following: Section 35(1)(a) was not engaged in relation to a small portion of the information. For the remaining information section 35(1)(a) was engaged and the public interest favours disclosure for the majority of this information. Section 35(1)(b) is not engaged for all the information Section 40(2) is engaged for some, but not all, personal data in the document. The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation. Disclose all the information in the document entitled “Getting your Bill through the Lords” except for the information identified in the Confidential Annex to this notice as having been properly withheld under section 35(1)(a); and the information identified in the main body of this Notice as having been properly withheld under section 40(2). Information Tribunal appeal EA/2014/0223 allowed in part.

FOI 35: Partly upheld FOI 40: Partly upheld