Northern Ireland Office

The complainant made five requests to the Northern Ireland Office (the NIO). These requests related to the NIO Information Service (the NIOIS) and the transfer of staff from the NIO to the newly created Department of Justice. The complainant complained about the NIO’s response to requests 1, 2, 4 and 5. The Commissioner’s decision is that the NIO correctly refused request 1 and 2 under section 12(1), as compliance would exceed the cost limit. Although request 5 was a revised version 2, the Commissioner finds that it could still be aggregated with request 1 and compliance would still exceed the cost limit. However the Commissioner has also decided that the NIO provided insufficient advice and assistance to the complainant in order for her to be able to submit a refined or revised request. The Commissioner requires the public authority to provide practical and meaningful advice to the complainant, so that she may actively use that information to submit a refined or revised request.