Ministry of Justice

The complainant made a multi-part request for information to the Office of the Public Guardian (“the OPG”) about local authority care arrangements. The OPG is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (“the MoJ”), the MoJ therefore being the relevant public authority. The MoJ answered some of the questions. It also said that some of the information requested was exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) (Personal information) of FOIA and that it did not hold some information about matters which did not fall within its remit (section 1). The Commissioner’s decision is that section 40(2) was applied correctly to withhold personal data about the complainant’s son’s health. He also found that, on the balance of probabilities, the MoJ did not hold information on the social care training or administrative procedures adopted by individual local authorities. He was also satisfied that one question was not a request for recorded information under section 8(1)(c) of FOIA and that the MoJ was not obliged to respond to it as such. The Commissioner requires no steps as a result of this decision. Information Tribunal appeal EA/203/0058 appeal struck out. First-tier tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) information rights appeal UA-2023-001145-GIA UT PTA refused.