Cabinet Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Cabinet Office seeking the costs incurred as a result of an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal concerning the Clearing House and previous drafts of documents that had been published March 2021 about the remit and operation of the Clearing House. The Cabinet Office provided the costs information but sought to withhold the drafts of the previous documents on the basis of section 35(1)(a) (formulation or development of government policy) of FOIA. Due to the passage of time it disclosed one of these documents but sought to withhold the remainder on the basis of section 35(1)(a). The Commissioner’s decision is that the withheld information is exempt from disclosure on the basis of section 35(1)(a) but that in all the circumstances of the request the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption.