St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi Academy Trust

The complainant has requested safeguarding-related information and a risk assessment document. The Governing Body of St Ralph Sherwin Catholic Multi-Academy Trust (‘the Trust’) advised it would not release some of the information, provided a little and denied holding any further relevant information. The Commissioner’s decision is that, on the balance of probabilities, the Trust has identified all the relevant information it holds within scope of parts 2 and 3 of the request and has therefore complied with its duty under section 1(1) of the FOIA. In respect of part 1 of the request, instead of indicating it was withholding personal data under section 40(2) of the FOIA, the Trust should have relied on section 40(5) to neither confirm nor deny holding relevant information and the Commissioner has therefore applied section 40(5) of the FOIA to this part herself, proactively. The Commissioner does not require the Trust to take any further steps. Information Tribunal appeal EA/2021/0315 appeal dismissed.