North East London NHS Trust

The complainant has requested information about Goodmayes Hospital Staff Social Club.  North East London NHS Foundation Trust (‘the Trust’) released some information and said that determining whether any further information was held would exceed the cost limit under section 12(2) of the FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that The Trust has breached section 10 of the FOIA (time for compliance) because it took longer than 20 working days to respond to both the complainant’s original request, and their revised request. The Trust has correctly applied section 12(2) to the complainant’s revised request of 4 September 2013. However, in order to fully comply with its obligations under section 16 (advice and assistance), the Commissioner requires the public authority to consider whether it would be reasonable to provide advice and assistance to the complainant in respect of their revised request. The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.