West of England Combined Authority

The complainant has made a four-part request for information about advertising campaigns. The West of England Combined Authority issued a response in which it stated that some parts of the request were not valid requests for information, and that for the remainder, the information was exempt from disclosure. During the course of investigation, WECA informed the Commissioner that upon review, it considered that all parts of the request were valid requests for information, and that its original response to the request did not therefore comply with FOIA. WECA also acknowledged that at the time of the request, it did not appear that appropriate searches for information had been carried out before determining that certain information was exempt from disclosure. The Commissioner’s decision is that WECA has failed to respond to the request in compliance with its duties under section 1 (General right of access to information) and section 10 (Time for compliance with the request). The Commissioner requires WECA to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: For each of the four parts of the request, conduct searches for any information falling within their scope, and issue a fresh response in which it confirms or denies information is held. Any held information should either be disclosed, or a valid refusal notice issued for any exemption WECA intends to rely on.