The complainant has requested information regarding policies on providing student references and on the time taken to deal with student complaints. The Governing Body of the University of Oxford (the University) informed the complainant that it did not hold the requested information. During the course of the investigation it became apparent that the University did hold information relating to the time taken to deal with complaints, but as this was contained within the individual complaint files, the time it would take to extract the information would exceed the appropriate limit. The University therefore relied on section 12 to refuse this element of the request which the complainant accepted. The Commissioner is satisfied that the University does not hold information about references, however its initial response to the request was late. The Commissioner’s decision is that the University breached section 10 of the FOIA by failing to inform the complainant that the information on references was not held within the statutory time limit. The University also breached section 17(5) by failing to inform the complainant of its application of section 12 to the information on student complaints within the statutory time limit. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any further action in respect of this request.
FOI 10: Complaint upheld FOI 17(5): Complaint upheld
Citations:
[2020] UKICO fs50894615
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Information
Updated: 19 July 2022; Ref: scu.653748
