University of the West of England

The complainant has requested information about expenditure on specific construction work and on student accommodation from the University of the West of England (UWE). UWE initially applied section 43 (commercial information) of FOIA to refuse the request. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, UWE reconsidered its response and applied regulation 12(5)(e) of the EIR (commercial or industrial information) to withhold figures in scope of the request. The Commissioner’s decision is that regulation 12(5)(e) is not engaged and therefore the information withheld under this exception must be disclosed. Furthermore, the Commissioner has found that UWE’s handling of the request breached regulation 14 of the EIR. The Commissioner requires UWE to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: Disclose to the complainant the withheld information, described in paragraph 24. UWE must take these steps within 30 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.