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Information Commissioner's Office
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Information Commissioner's Office >> Information Commissioner (Other) [2022] UKICO ic-76861 (21 March 2022)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKICO/2022/ic-76861.html
Cite as: [2022] UKICO ic-76861
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Information Commissioner
The complainant requested the ICO to disclose information relating to the register of fee payers and the processing and publication of personal data. This was a 15 part request and has been submitted three times to the ICO. The three requests are referred to as the Group 1, 2 and 3 requests. The ICO responded to the Group 1 requests on 25 October 2019, following an earlier decision notice issued by the Commissioner on 11 September 2019. It responded to all of the Group 2 requests on 9 January 2022 (it had responded only to parts 10 and 14 previously) and it responded to the Group 3 requests on 8 January 2022. Following receipt of the responses to the Group 1, 2 and 3 requests, the complainant remained dissatisfied and asked the Commissioner to consider whether the ICO had now met its obligations under FOIA, whether any further recorded information was held by the ICO at the time of the requests and to consider whether there had been any procedural breaches of the legislation. The Commissioner’s decision is that the ICO has now met its obligations under FOIA, although this is a result of a fresh search conducted in response to the Commissioner’s section 50 investigation. The ICO located three further documents. In addition to this the complainant has identified further documents which the Commissioner considers falls within the scope of the request and should have been identified by the ICO’s searches. On this basis, the Commissioner is satisfied that, on the balance of probabilities, no further recorded information is held (other than that which has now been newly identified by the ICO and the complainant). The new information identified is however exempt from disclosure under section 42 and 21 FOIA. There has however been further procedural breaches of the legislation in addition to those recorded in the Commissioner’s earlier notice of 11 September 2019. The ICO breached section 10 FOIA as it did not respond to the Group 2 and 3 requests within the statutory time for compliance. Furthermore as the ICO did not identify all recorded information held falling within the scope of the Group 1, 2 and 3 requests within twenty working days it again failed to comply with section 10 FOIA. Finally it breached section 17(1) as it did not identify the exemptions being relied upon to withhold the newly identified information. The Commissioner requires no further action to be taken.FOI 42: Complaint not upheld FOI 21: Complaint not upheld FOI 10: Complaint upheld FOI 17: Complaint upheld FOI 16: Complaint not upheld FOI 1: Complaint not upheld
Decision notice: ic-76861