Financial Ombudsman Service

The complainant has requested information from the Financial Ombudsman Service (‘FOS’) relating to its policies, procedures and standards. The FOS initially applied section 12(1) of FOIA to the request, however it eventually withdrew this and disclosed some of the requested information to the complainant, provided links to some further information, and stated that it did not hold the remainder.
The Commissioner’s decision is that the FOS has not complied with sections 1, 10 and 17 of FOIA.
The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation.
To issue a fresh response to the complainant in relation to part b of their request, which does not state that the information is not held.
The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of FOIA and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.