Highways England

The complainant has requested information on the rates a particular contractor charges Highways England (HE) for its staff, known as Asset Incident Watchmen (AIW), to attend incidents on the routes it is responsible for. HE have refused the request under section 43(2) of the FOIA on the basis that disclosure would prejudice the commercial interests of both itself and the contractor. The Commissioner’s decision is that section 43(2) is not engaged and therefore by failing to communicate the requested information HE has breached section 1(1)(b) of the FOIA. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose the information on the AIW hourly rates for each of the four areas managed by Kier for the period covered by the request.