Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (‘the FCO’) for correspondence between the FCO and a number of Tony Blair’s organisations. The FCO confirmed to the complainant that it holds information relevant to the request but it advised that further time was required to consider the public interest test. To date, the FCO has failed to provide the complainant with a substantive response. By failing to do so the Commissioner has concluded that the FCO breached section 17(3) of the FOIA. The Commissioner requires the FCO to provide the complainant with a substantive response to his information request. If the FCO decides to withhold any information then the complainant should be provided with a refusal notice giving a full explanation as to why the information will not be disclosed, including details of any public interest test considerations.