Department of Health

The complainant made a number of requests for information to the Department of Health (‘the DoH’) about the new NHS bill and other issues about its handling of the correspondence. He referred six of these requests to the Information Commissioner (‘the Commissioner’) who numbered them requests [1] to [6]. The DoH confirmed that it had answered request [1] and the complainant agreed to withdraw it. It applied section 12(1) to [2] – [6] explaining that the combined work that needed to be done would exceed the costs limit of the Act. It also applied section 14(2) to request [3] as well. The Commissioner has determined that section 14(2) was applied correctly to request [3], while section 12(1) was applied appropriately to requests [2], [4], [5] and [6]. He also considers that the DoH offered reasonable advice and assistance in all the circumstances of this case. He requires no remedial steps to be taken.