Cabinet Office

The complainant submitted three requests to the Cabinet Office each seeking a file containing records of the Ministerial Committee on Animal Rights Activists. The Cabinet Office initially withheld each file on the basis of sections 23(1) (security bodies) and 24(1) (national security) (cited in the alternative) and sections 31(1)(a) to (c) (law enforcement). During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation the Cabinet Office withdrew its application of sections 31(1)(a) to (c), and for two of the files cited section 22(1) (information intended for future publication), and for the third file explained that at the time of the request, save for some retained material, the file in question was not held. The Commissioner has concluded that the Cabinet Office can rely on sections 23(1) and 24(1) in the manner in which it has and that section 40(2) also applies to some information; that section 22(1) applies to only one of the files; and that the remaining two files – save for the retained material – were not held at the time of the request.