Charity Commission for England and Wales

The complainant has requested information on the number of complaints received about a named charity, and details of any serious incidents reported by that charity between 2013 and 2023. The Charity Commission (‘the Commission’) provided a response to the first part of the request, but it relied on section 31(3) of FOIA (law enforcement) to neither confirm nor deny whether it held the information for the second part. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Commission was entitled to rely on section 31(3) of FOIA to neither confirm nor deny whether it held the requested information in the second part of the request. The Commissioner also finds that the Commission breached section 10(1) and 17(1) of FOIA by failing to communicate information or issue a section 31 refusal notice within 20 working days. The Commissioner does not require further steps.