Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
- Date 14 August 2018
- Sector Central government
- Decision(s) EIR 12.4.b: Not upheld
The complainant has requested information concerning the cost benefit analysis of advanced (energy) meters carried out by the former Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (now the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy). BEIS refused the original request in its entirely and a subsequent refined request in part under Section 12 (costs limit of the FOIA and/or Regulation 12(4)(b)(manifestly unreasonable).
The Commissioner’s decision is that BEIS correctly refused both requests as manifestly unreasonable and that the public interest balance favours maintaining the exception in both cases. However, the Commissioner has found that BEIS breached Regulations 5(2) and 11(4) in their handling of the requests.