The UK Freedom of Information Blog has an excellent summary by Jim Matthew of a recent Information Tribunal ruling that clarifies when a public authority can claim that information is not held and refuse a request on that basis. Jim summarises the key points of the decision as follows:
"1) The “information not held” line can only be employed if manipulation of the raw data to produce the requested information would require levels of skill and judgement (not relevant in this instance, since all that was required was a member of staff to look through the paper files (and know that there were 3 or 4 possible terms that might be used to replace “Strike Out”, but which meant the same thing)).
2) If skill and judgement are not required, then the “information not held” line can not be employed and another reason would need to be found for refusal. In this case, the Tribunal accepted that collating the requested information would have significantly exceeded the cost ceiling."
Here's a link to the ruling itself: ML Johnson v ICO & MoJ.
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