Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

The complainant has requested information relating to complaints about the conduct of Liz Truss in her role as secretary of state in the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). DEFRA initially relied on section 40(5B)(a)(i) of FOIA (third party personal information) to neither confirm or deny the information was held. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, it changed its position to rely on section 1 (information not held) for information falling in scope of the request. The Commissioner’s decision is that DEFRA has complied with section 1 in respect of the requested information. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps to ensure compliance with the legislation.