Information Commissioner's Office

Ministry of Justice

25 July 2016, Central government

The complainant requested information about the number of complaints made in relation to courts losing correspondence. Following clarification of the request, the Ministry of Justice (the ‘MOJ’) advised that the requested information is not held. During the Commissioner’s investigation, the MOJ revised its position to also rely on section 12, the cost exclusion of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that, on the civil balance of probabilities, no electronic information is held. He also finds that the MOJ was correct to rely on section 12 in respect of any manually held information. However, as the MOJ failed to respond to the clarified request within 20 working days, it breached section 10(1) of FOIA. The Commissioner does not require the MOJ to take any remedial steps to ensure compliance with the legislation.

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