Information Commissioner's Office

Department for Education

29 June 2016, Central government

The complainant requested from the Education Funding Agency (“EFA”), an executive agency of the Department for Education (“DfE”), information about the redevelopment of Chagford Primary School. The EFA applied section 12 of FOIA to the request. The Commissioner’s decision is that the public authority has: complied with section 1 as it reasonably interpreted the scope of the complainant’s request; breached section 10(1) as it did not respond to the complainant’s request promptly; correctly applied section 12 to the complainant’s request; and breached section 16 as it did not provide reasonable advice and assistance to the complainant. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps in relation to its breach of section 16 as the complainant has subsequently submitted a new request to which it did not apply section 12. As an executive agency of the DfE, the EFA does not constitute a public authority for the purposes of FOIA and so this notice is issued to its parent Department, the DfE.

FOI 1: Not upheld FOI 10: Upheld FOI 12: Not upheld FOI 16: Upheld