Serious Fraud Office
- Date 6 April 2016
- Sector Central government
- Decision(s) FOI 10: Upheld, FOI 17: Upheld, FOI 23: Not upheld, FOI 27: Not upheld, FOI 31: Not upheld
The complainant requested the numbers of corporate self-reports of bribery or corruption and allegations of corruption from whistle-blowers and other sources, received by the Serious Fraud Office. She also requested the number of investigations currently carried out by the Serious Fraud Office into overseas bribery and corruption. The Serious Fraud Office would neither confirm nor deny holding some of the information by virtue of section 23(5) (security bodies) and applied sections 27(1)(a) (prejudice relations between the UK and any other State) and 31(1)(a) (prejudice to the prevention or detection of crime) to the remainder. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Serious Fraud Office has applied all of the exemptions appropriately. However, he considers that the SFO has breached sections 17 (refusal of a request) and 10(3) (extension of the time taken to consider the public interest). The Commissioner does not require the Serious Fraud Office to take any steps as a result of this decision notice.