Office of the Advisory Committee on Businesses Appointments

The complainant requested correspondence relating to 18 applications for advice that were subsequently withdrawn. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments pointed to some information that was already in the public domain but refused to provide the remainder of the information it held, relying on section 36 of FOIA (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) in order to do so. The Commissioner’s decision is that ACOBA has correctly applied sections 36(2)(b)(i), 36(2)(b)(ii) and 36(2)(c) of FOIA to the withheld information and that the balance of the public interest favours maintaining the exemption. The Commissioner does not require further steps to be taken.