Martin Ronsenbaum has written on the BBC's Freedom of Information blog about the Department for Education and Skill's (DfES) response to 6 Freedom of Information Act requests made by the BBC.
In only one of the 6 cases was the requested information supplied. For one request, the DfES said that the information requested was exempt from disclosure under the Act. For two others, the DfES said that the cost of responding would be more than the cost limit. For the remaining two, the DfES didn't have the information requested.
In the blog, Martin doesn't detail the requests themselves so it's impossible to say whether the DfES has acted correctly or incorrectly in making these responses. Given that the requests were about sex offenders, there's a good chance that the information requested was personal data and therefore not subject to the Act. However, that's just a possibility and Martin would have to confirm that.
What is of note is that the DfES response was 9 months after the BBC requests were made. The Act gives public bodies 20 days to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. The DfES response is a long time after that, and even if the Information Commissioner doesn't take an interest in this delay it'd be good to see the DfES making sure that this delay isn't repeated in the future.
Of course, the BBC has had its own Freedom of Information Act policies brought into question in the not-too-distant-past. See the Information Commissioner decisions about the BBC, as reported on by IMPACT in September.
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