Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) seeking information about audits and evaluations into projects carried about in Iraq by the company Aktis. The FCO initially withheld all of the information in the scope of the request before disclosing some of this information to the complainant in two stages. The FCO sought to withhold the remaining information on the basis of the following sections of FOIA: 27(1)(a) (international relations), 38(1)(a) and (b) (health and safety), 40(2) (personal data) and 43(2) (commercial interests). The Commissioner has concluded that the FCO is entitled to rely on sections 27(1)(a), 38(1)(a) and (b) and 40(2) and for qualified exemptions the balance of the public interest test favours maintaining the exemptions. However, the Commissioner has also concluded that the FCO is not entitled to rely on section 43(2) to withhold information. Furthermore, she has concluded that the FCO breached section 10(1) of FOIA by failing to disclose the information which it accepted was not exempt from disclosure within 20 working days of the request.