Commission for Local Administration in England

The complainant has requested information relating to the investigating of complaints. The Commission for Local Administration in England initially stated that it did not hold some of the information and that the remainder was exempt under section 21 of FOIA because the information was reasonably accessible to the complainant. During the Commissioner’s investigation it instead relied on section 12 of FOIA (costs) to refuse the parts of the request it considered to be valid. The Commissioner’s decision is that only parts [14], [15], [16], [17] and [24] of the request correspondence met the requirements of section 8 of FOIA and thus constituted valid requests for information. The LGSCO was entitled to rely on section 12 of FOIA to refuse these parts. As the LGSCO failed to rely on section 12 of FOIA within 20 working days, it breached section 17(5) of FOIA. The Commissioner does not require further steps.