Executive Office Northern Ireland

The complainant has requested information related to the 'Rwanda' policy and Northern Ireland. The Executive Office Northern Ireland (“the public authority”) relied upon, amongst another, the exemptions at section 28(1) FOIA and s35(1)(a) to withhold the requested information.The Commissioner’s decision is that the section 28(1) exemption was engaged for the majority of the withheld information and that the public interest favoured maintaining the exemption. Where the minority of the withheld information did not engage section 28(1), it did engage section 35(1)(a), however the public interest did not favour maintaining the exemption.  

After the decision notice was issued, the public authority informed the Commissioner that the information identified in the confidential annex (ordered to be released to the complainant) had been previously disclosed to him. That is, it was not information withheld from the complainant. The Commissioner accepts this assertion and acknowledges a misappreciation of those facts