Department for Education

The complainant has requested details of the measures in place to retain data relating to the work of the Department for Education (the “DfE”) from the private email accounts of its employees, including civil servants and special advisors, who subsequently leave the DfE. The complainant has not received a substantive response to this request. The Commissioner’s decision is that the DfE has breached section 10(1) of the FOIA by failing to respond to the complainant’s request promptly or at all within 20 working days. The Commissioner requires the DfE to state which information it holds within the scope of the complainant’s request and to communicate the information it holds to the complainant and/or issue a refusal notice in respect of all or the parts of the information it intends to withhold in accordance with section 17 of the FOIA.