Information Commissioner's Office

Ministry of Justice

24 August 2016, Central government

The complainant requested information concerning the handling of correspondence by the MoJ. The MoJ responded, after a delay, to some of the points in the complainant’s correspondence and refused them on cost grounds under section 12(1) of the FOIA. It did not respond to the remainder of the points in the complainant’s correspondence. The Commissioner’s decision is that the MoJ cited section 12(1) correctly and so was not obliged to comply with those parts of the complainant’s request. However, she also finds that the MoJ breached section 17(5) of the FOIA in failing to respond within 20 working days with the section 12(1) refusal notice, and sections 1 and 10 in not responding to some other parts of the complainant’s correspondence that the Commissioner believes were valid requests for recorded information. The MoJ is now required to respond to those requests.

FOI 1: Upheld FOI 10: Upheld FOI 12: Not upheld FOI 17: Upheld