Secretary of State for Defence (Ministry of Defence)

The complainant submitted a request to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) seeking a list of all versions of the NATO/ISAF "night raid tactical directive" along with copies of these documents. The MOD provided a list of the directives it held, noting that two of these were available in the public domain. It relied on sections 27(1)(a) and (b), and section 27(2) (international relations) to withhold the third version of the document that it held.  The Commissioner’s decision is that the third version of the Directive is exempt from disclosure on the basis of section 27(1)(b) and that in all the circumstances of the case the public interest favours maintaining this exemption. However, the Commissioner has found that the MOD breached section 17(1) by failing to respond to the request within 20 working days and section 10(1) by only providing the non-exempt information to the complainant outside of this timescale.