Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) (now the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, FCDO) seeking access to six files concerning Sri Lanka in the 1980s. The FCO disclosed some part of the files to the complainant but sought to withhold other parts on the basis of the following exemptions within FOIA: section 23(1) (security bodies), section 24(1) (national security), sections 26(1)(a) and (b) (defence), sections 27(1)(a) and 27(2) (international relations), sections 31(1)(a) and (b) (law enforcement), section 40(2) (personal data) and section 41(1) (information provided in confidence). The complainant disputed the FCO’s reliance on these exemptions and also argued that the FCO should have provided him with a schedule of how it was applying the exemptions to the specific redactions. The Commissioner’s decision is that FCO is entitled to withhold the remaining information on the basis of the exemptions it has cited, the only exception to this is a small portion of information contained in file FCO 37/4354. However, the Commissioner has also concluded that the FCO was not obliged to provide the complainant with a schedule setting out how the exemptions had been applied. It did however breach section 17(3) by failing to complete its public interest test considerations in a reasonable time. Information Tribunal appeal EA/2022/0023 under appeal.