Information Commissioner's Office

Home Office

25 July 2017, Central government

The complainant has requested information about agreements, licences and memorandums of understanding (“MOUs”) between the Home Office and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“KSA”). The Home Office disclosed some information about a particular MOU and also certain import/export licences. It withheld the remaining information in connection with the MOU under the exemptions at sections 24(1) (national security) and 27(1)(a) (international relations), and it withheld information about the import/export licenses under section 43(2) (commercial interests) of the FOIA. It also refused to confirm or deny whether it held any other information falling within scope of the request, citing section 27(4)(a) and (b) (international relations) of the FOIA.  The Commissioner’s decision is that the Home Office was entitled to rely on the exemption at section 27(1)(a) of the FOIA to withhold information about the MOU. It was also entitled to rely on section 27(4) to neither confirm nor deny whether it held further information. However, the Home Office did not apply the section 43(2) exemption correctly. It also breached section 10(1) by failing to comply with section 1(1) within the time for compliance, and section 17(1) by failing to provide a refusal notice within the time for compliance. The Commissioner requires the Home Office to issue a fresh response to part (iv) of the request. The information should either be disclosed or a further refusal notice provided which is compliant with section 17 of the FOIA and which does not rely on section 43(2) of the FOIA.

FOI 10: Upheld FOI 17: Upheld FOI 27: Not upheld FOI 43: Upheld