Cabinet Office

The complainant has requested full copies of all email and other electronic messages between Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain between 22 May 2020 and 28 May 2020. The Cabinet Office initially relied upon section 40(2) of FOIA (personal data) to withhold the information in its entirety.
During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, the Cabinet Office also applied section 21(1) (information accessible by other means) and section 36 (prejudice to the effective conduct of public affairs) to withhold the information in its entirety.
The Commissioner has found that section 21(1) applies to part of the withheld information and that section 36 applies to the remainder of the withheld information.
As section 36 has been found to apply to the majority of the withheld information (save for the information to which section 21 applies), it was not necessary for the Commissioner to go on to consider whether section 40(2) applied to the withheld information.
The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps. First-tier tribunal (General Regulatory chamber) information rights appeal EA/2023/0391 under appeal.