Information Commissioner's Office

Ministry of Justice

21 August 2017, Central government

The complainant submitted a multi-part request to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) requesting information about meeting the needs of older prisoners. The MoJ stated that it was unable to establish whether it held this information within the cost limit and therefore refused the request under section 12(2) of the FOIA (cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit). The Commissioner has investigated the MoJ’s handling of parts (2) and (3) of the request. The Commissioner’s decision is that the MoJ misinterpreted the request and failed to properly establish whether it held the actual information requested at those parts of the request. Therefore it has not complied with the duty at section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA.The Commissioner requires the MoJ to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: provide reasonable advice and assistance to the complainant pursuant to the duty provided by section 16 of the FOIA. The advice and assistance should be given with a view to clarifying what is being asked for within parts (2) and (4) of the request. It should then issue a fresh response.

FOI 1: Upheld