Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) seeking information about the decision to award Harvey Weinstein an honorary CBE in 2014. The FCO sought to withhold all of the information falling within the scope of the request on the basis of section 37(1)(b) (information relating to the conferring of an honour) and the majority of this information also on the basis of section 40(2) (personal data) of FOIA. The Commissioner has concluded that although section 37(1)(b) is engaged, for the majority of the information the public interest favours disclosure of this information. However, in relation to the name of the individual who nominated Mr Weinstein and the information relating to other nominees referred to in the withheld information, the public interest favours maintaining the exemption. In respect of section 40(2), the only information which the Commissioner accepts is exempt on the basis of this exemption consists of the names of FCO and other government officials and also Mr Weinstein’s home address. Information Tribunal appeal EA/2019/0031 under appeal.