Mr Cooney requested from the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (the PCCS) information relating to the number of complaints that the PCCS had received regarding police forces and police authorities in Scotland and how those complaints had been dealt with. The PCCS provided some information to Mr Cooney, advised him that some information was not held by it and withheld the remainder under section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). Following a review, Mr Cooney remained dissatisfied and applied to the Commissioner for a decision.
During the investigation the PCCS released the remainder of the information which had been withheld, but Mr Cooney remained dissatisfied with the PCCS’s handling of his request and asked the Commissioner to issue a decision.
The Commissioner accepted that the PCCS had provided Mr Cooney with all relevant information. However, he concluded that it had breached Part 1 of FOISA by wrongly withholding the requested information until the investigation commenced. The PCCS did not provide any arguments in support of its decision, and so the Commissioner could only conclude that the exemption had been wrongly applied. Since the information had been disclosed, he did not require the PCCS to take any action.
References: [2009] ScotIC 117 – 2009
Links: Bailii
Jurisdiction: Scotland
Last Update: 24 September 2020; Ref: scu.434064
