[2025] UKUT 251 (AAC)

Some points of general application under the FOIA regime, well understood and routinely recognised by the Upper Tribunal and the First-tier Tribunal, follow from the statutory scheme.

First, the nature and scope of the IC’s functions under s.50 require him carefully to consider the terms of the public authority’s refusal of compliance with the requirements of Part I (and particularly s.1(1)). Depending on the terms of the request, and the explanations afforded in the refusal notice issued under s.17, the most common issues which the IC will need to consider in the course of his investigation will be:

whether the information in issue falls within the scope of the request at all, or whether other information does so;

whether the information withheld on the basis of an exemption falls within the scope of that exemption, i.e. that the exemption is engaged at all; and

whether, in the case of a qualified exemption (or an exemption which engages an analogous balancing exercise), the public interest balance favours the disclosure of the information or the maintenance of the exemption.