[2025] UKUT 251 (AAC)

where further the detailed exercise of review of information said to engage s.42 was carried out in All Party Parliamentary Group on ExtraordinaryRendition v Information Commissioner & Foreign and Commonwealth Office [2013] UKUT 560 (AAC) at [129-139].

Fifthly, there is no appellate authority on notices issued under s.51 FOIA. However, UKIP v Information Commissioner [2019] UKUT 62 (AAC) concerned the exercise of the equivalent, and similarly worded, power under s.43 of the DPA 1998. The Upper Tribunal construed the requirement to state what was required and the reasons for that as only requiring a high level of generality, and fell to be considered against the wider context to the notice, including preceding correspondence: at [23-24]. Where the notice had been drafted in an ambiguous and potentially unclear way as to the timeframe it applied to, a fair and objective reading had to be applied in the light of the notice as a whole: at [27]. The fact that the IC could certify non-compliance for contempt proceedings did not mean the notice should be approached as though it were a criminal indictment: at [27]. When considering the exercise of discretion, there was no requirement for the IC to show that there was no less restrictive alternative: at [29-30]. The Upper Tribunal characterised the decision as a “classic issue of discretion”: at [31]. The challenge to the exercise of discretion was dismissed.