Information Commissioner's Office

Department for Education

8 September 2016, Central government

The complainant requested from the Education Funding Agency (“EFA”) information about the redevelopment of Chagford Primary School (“CPS”). The EFA provided some information but withheld other information under sections 40(2) and 43(2). The Commissioner’s decision is that the EFA correctly applied section 43(2) to the information that it withheld, that it complied with section 1, as it holds no further information falling within the scope of complainant’s request, and that it complied with section 10(1), by responding promptly to the request. However, she has decided that the EFA breached section 10(3), by taking more than a reasonable time to carry out the public interest test in relation to section 43(2), and breached section 17(1), by failing to state within 20 working days of receipt of the request that it was applying section 40(2) to some information. The Commissioner does not require the EFA to take any further steps to ensure compliance with the legislation. As an executive agency of the Department for Education (“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: Partly upheld FOI 17: Upheld FOI 43: Not upheld