South Yorkshire Police

The complainant has requested copies of employment references supplied to South Yorkshire Police (‘SYP’) for a named individual. SYP would neither confirm nor deny (‘NCND’) whether it held the requested information, citing section 40(5) (Personal information) of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that SYP was entitled to apply section 40(5B)(a)(i) of FOIA to issue an NCND response. However, it breached section 17(1) of FOIA by failing to issue a valid refusal notice within the 20 working day time for compliance.