Ofcom

The complainant has requested information connected to meetings held with Sir Nick Clegg, then Facebook’s President of Global Affairs. The Office of Communications relied on section 44 (statutory prohibition) and section 36 (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) of FOIA to withhold the requested information. The Commissioner’s decision is that Ofcom is only entitled to rely on section 44 of FOIA to withhold some of the information falling within the scope of the request. Of the information to which section 44 does not apply, all of the information engages section 36(2)(b)(i) and 36(2)(b)(ii) of FOIA, but the balance of the public interest favours disclosure of some (though not all) of this information. Ofcom has not demonstrated that section 36(2)(c) applies to any of the withheld information. The Commissioner also finds that Ofcom failed to identify correctly the information that did and did not fall within the scope of the request Finally, the Commissioner finds that Ofcom breached section 17 of FOIA as it failed to issue its refusal notice within 20 working days. The Commissioner requires the Ofcom to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: disclose, to the complainant, the information identified in Confidential Annex A.