Information Commissioner's Office

NHS Commissioning Board (NHS England)

19 November 2015, Health (NHS)

The complainant has requested full details of the Lead Provider Framework submission from Yorkshire & Humber Commissioning Support. The complainant said that this should include a copy of the submission and the documents relating to the appraisal of the bid including the scoring sheets that were completed. NHS England refused to provide the requested information under section 43(2) FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that NHS England incorrectly applied section 43(2) FOIA to the contents of the withheld submission but correctly applied section 43(2) FOIA to the scoring document. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose the withheld submission. The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.

FOI 43: Partly upheld