Kent County Council

The complainant has requested information about referrals of young people to the counter terrorism programme, Prevent. Kent County Council (‘the Council’) refused to comply with most of the request, citing sections 24(1) (National security) and (12)(2) (Cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit) of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council was entitled to apply section 24(1) of FOIA to refuse parts (2) – (3) of the request, and that the public interest favours maintaining the exemption. He also finds that it was entitled, by section 12(2) of FOIA, to refuse to confirm or deny whether it holds the information specified in parts (4) – (6) of the request, and that it complied with the requirements of section 16 (Advice and assistance).