Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

The complainant has requested information relating to complaints about the conduct of Liz Truss in her role as Foreign Secretary. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) initially relied on section 40(5B) of FOIA (third party personal information) to neither confirm or deny the information was held. It later changed its position to rely on section 1 of FOIA (information not held) for information falling in scope of the request for the period up to 23 July 2022. For any information falling in scope of the request for the period from 24 July 2022 to 6 September 2022, it maintained its position of neither confirming or denying that the information was held citing section 40(5B) of FOIA (third party personal information).The Commissioner’s decision is that the FCDO has correctly relied on section 1 for the requested information for the period up to 23 July 2022 and on section 40(5B) for information falling in scope of the request relating to the period from 24 July 2022 to 6 September 2022. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps to ensure compliance with the legislation.