Barts Health NHS Trust

The complainant requested information relating to a particular information governance breach. Barts Health NHS Trust (the Trust) refused to comply with the request and cited section 14(1) of the FOIA (vexatious requests) as its basis for doing so. The Commissioner’s decision is that The Trust was not entitled to rely on section 14(1) to refuse the request. She also finds that the Trust breached section 10(1) of the FOIA by failing to provide its substantive response to the request within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. The Commissioner requires the Trust to issue a fresh response to the request which does not rely on section 14(1) of the FOIA.