Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant has requested specific files from The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO’s) ‘Special Collections’. The FCO confirmed that it holds information relevant to the request. It repeatedly advised the complainant that it required further time 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 has breached section 17(3) of FOIA. The Commissioner requires the public authority 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 the full explanation as to why the information will not be disclosed, including details of any public interest test consideration.