London Borough of Barnet

The complainant has requested details of the job titles of officers involved in the evaluating of proposals for the New Support & Customer Services Organisation. The London Borough of Barnet (the “council”) refused the request, withholding the information under the commercial interests exemption. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation the council also applied the exemption for personal information to the requested information. The Commissioner’s decision is that the council has wrongly applied the commercial interests exemption and that it has partially misapplied the exemption for personal information. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose the job titles of the senior officers and, where more than one person holds the job title, the junior officers identified by the request. This decision notice is currently under appeal to the Information Tribunal.