University College London

The complainant has requested University College London (UCL) to disclose information relating to its monitoring of the ethnicity balance of recruitment panels. Initially UCL stated that the requested information is not held. However, during the Commissioner’s investigation UCL claimed a late reliance on section 12 of the FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that UCL is entitled to rely on section 12 of the FOIA in this case. She has however recorded a breach of section 10 and 16 of the FOIA, as UCL failed to respond to the request in the statutory timeframe for compliance and failed to provide advice and assistance to the complainant. UCL has now provided advice and assistance to the complainant, so the Commissioner does not require any further action to be taken.