Breakdown of Freedom of Information requests
Published 18 April 2011
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/breakdown-of-freedom-of-information-requests--4/breakdown-of-freedom-of-information-requests
- Date requested: 1 April 2011
- Publish date: 18 April 2011
- Updated: 26 May 2011
1. Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000,can the department please disclose the following details regarding it’s FOI requests in each of the last three years (questions 1 to 2) and the number of times the department used a Section 35 exemption or a Section 36 exemption in response to a FOI request (questions 3 to 4):
-
The number of FOI requests processed by the Department?
-
The number of FOI requests responded to with:
* the disclosure of all information requested,
* the partial disclosure of some information requested and
* a refusal/failure to disclose any information? -
The number of times the department used a Section 35 exemption or a Section 36 exemption in response to a FOI request?
-
Of those, when the resulting public interest test resulted in:
* a full disclosure,
* a partial disclosure,
* a refusal to disclose?
2. Release
Under section 21 of the Act, the department is not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to the public.
The information requested in questions 1 and 2 of the request can be found on the Ministry of Justice’s website
The statistics for October to December 2010 were published on Thursday 28 April 2011. This information is therefore exempt under section 22. The exemption under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act recognises that it must be reasonable in all the circumstances to withhold the information until the date of publication.
Given the necessary preparation and administration involved in publishing the information, it is considered that this publication timetable is reasonable.
In reply to question 3, the department used section 35 and section 36 to withhold information the following number of times:
| 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| s.35 | 21 | 27 | 40 |
| s.36 | 27 | 50 | 20 |
However, the department only records the number of times an exemption is used to withhold information. It does not record how many times an exemption is considered but deemed not to apply, nor how many times the exemption is applied but the public interest test favours disclosure.