A journalist sought information from the appellant as to illegal firearms, and gun crime. The appellant said it would take many hours to prepare the information sought in a disclosable form, saying that the time taken to redact the information should be included for the times under the 2004 Regulations. The commissioner decided that some material redacted should be re-instated for disclosure.
Held: The chief constable’s appeal failed. ‘The critical issue . . was whether the time spent in determining whether information which had been requested was exempt from disclosure was included in any of the tasks referred to in reg. 4(3). Since the information which had been requested was in a document, the question was whether determining whether the information in that document which had been requested was exempt from disclosure was a task which was included in ‘extracting the information from’ the relevant document within the meaning of reg. 4(3)(d).’
Since reg. 4(2) refers both to information which is exempt from disclosure and information which is not, there is no basis for asserting that the time spent in redacting from the relevant document information which is exempt from disclosure is to be included in reg. 4(3)(d) as well as the time spent in extracting the information in the document which was requested.
Keith J
[2011] EWHC 44 (Admin)
Bailii
Freedom of Information Act 2000, Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Jenkins v Information Commisioner and Dept for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs IT 2-Nov-2007
It was argued that determining whether information which had been requested was exempt from disclosure was included in ‘extracting the information’ from the relevant document within the meaning of reg. 4(3)(d). The Tribunal took the view that the . .
Cited – Home Office and Another v The Information Commissioner Admn 6-Jul-2009
The court considered an application for information under the Act about how the respondent had made its decisions on previous requests for information. . .
Cited – Thee Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform v Information Commissioner and Friend of the Earth IT 29-Apr-2008
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Information
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.428318