Ofgem

The complainant made a meta request to Ofgem for the information it held that had lead the officer/Ofgem to reach a decision that section 30 of FOIA applied to an earlier request they had made. Ofgem interpreted the request incorrectly but during the Commissioner’s investigation it rectified this and disclosed some information to the complainant. It withheld the remainder under sections 40 and 42 of FOIA. No complaint was made about Ofgem’s application of section 40 of FOIA. The Commissioner’s investigation therefore focused on Ofgem’s application of section 42 of FOIA and any procedural breaches of FOIA in terms of how the request was handled. The Commissioner’s decision is that Ofgem is entitled to refuse to disclose the remaining withheld information under section 42 of FOIA. He has however found Ofgem in breach of sections 1, 10 and 17 of FOIA. The Commissioner does not require further steps to be taken.