ICO The complainant has requested from the Department of Health Information about the public authority’s procedures around Summary Care Records. The DoH provided some information, applied section 21(1) to other information and explained that it did not hold any more information. The complainant referred this matter to the Information Commissioner. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, the DoH provided the complainant with some more information and explained that it now believed that the costs limit [section 12(1)] applied because it would require work beyond the costs limit to be certain to find all the information requested. The complainant then asked the Commissioner to issue a Decision Notice on specific problems with the DoH’s handling of his request. For those issues, the Commissioner has determined: the DoH’s response was delayed and it breached section 17(5) in not telling the complainant that it was relying on section 12(1) in 20 working days; the DoH also breached sections 1(1)(a) and 10(1) in wrongly declaring that it did not hold further relevant recorded information when it did; the advice and assistance provided by the DoH was not reasonable and it breached section 16(1); and the DoH wrongly argued that section 21(1) applied to the information behind links that didn’t work and so also breached sections 1(1)(b) and 10(1). He does not require any remedial steps to be taken because the DoH provided the readily available information on the Commissioner’s instruction and the complainant has submitted a narrowed request to the DoH after discussing this matter with the Commissioner which would have constituted the advice and assistance that he would have ordered the DoH to provide.
Section of Act/EIR and Finding: FOI 1 – Complaint Upheld, FOI 10 – Complaint Upheld, FOI 16 – Complaint Upheld, FOI 17 – Complaint Upheld, FOI 21 – Complaint Upheld
[2011] UKICO FS50395506
Bailii
Freedom of Information Act 2000
England and Wales
Information
Updated: 12 December 2021; Ref: scu.531068
