Information Commissioner's Office

Cabinet Office

9 January 2018, Central government

The complainant submitted a meta-request to the Cabinet Office following on from an earlier request he had submitted to it about the cloud based collaboration tool Slack. The Cabinet Office refused the meta-request on the basis of section 36 (effective conduct of public affairs) of FOIA. The complainant subsequently made a further request for the reasonable opinion record and the correspondence leading up to it which the Cabinet Office used to engage section 36 to the information in the scope of the meta-request. The Cabinet Office argued that the information in the scope of the further request was itself exempt from disclosure on the basis of sections 36(2)(b)(i), (ii) and (c) of FOIA. The Commissioner has concluded that information falling in the scope of the further request is exempt on the basis of these exemptions and that in all the circumstances of the case the public interest favours maintaining the exemptions.

FOI 36: Not upheld