In a two part request, the complainant requested from Highways England communications its Green Claims team has had with Kier, one of its contractors. Highways England categorised the first part of the request as originally framed as a vexatious request under section 14(1) of the FOIA and refused to comply with it. Once the complainant had refined this part of the request, Highways England complied with that part but did not address the second part of the original request. The complainant considers that Highways England holds further information within the scope of part 1 of his request and noted that he had not received a response to the second part. The Commissioner’s decision is as follows: With regard to part 1 of the request, Highways England has breached section 1(1) of the FOIA as it has not released to the complainant some of the information it holds – email domain names – or addressed another element within scope of this part – attachments to emails. However, other than the domain names and the attachments, on the balance of probabilities Highways England does not hold any other relevant information. With regard to part 2 of the request, Highways England has complied with section 1(1) of the FOIA as the Commissioner is satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that it does not hold the requested information. Highways England breached section 10(1) of the FOIA as it did not fully comply with section 1(1) with regard to both parts of the request within 20 working days. The Commissioner requires Highways England to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: Provide the complainant with a response to the email attachment element of the request for correspondence between Highways England’s Green Claims team and Kier that complies with the FOIA. If it has not already done so, release the ‘domain’ element of the above email correspondence that it has previously redacted.
FOI 10: Complaint partly upheld FOI 1: Complaint partly upheld
Citations:
[2021] UKICO IC-44186
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Information
Updated: 15 August 2022; Ref: scu.663008
