Invalid requests, refusals and exemptions - FOI Policy
Invalid requests
A request will be considered by the Information Governance team as invalid under Oxford City Council FOI policy/FOIA for the following reasons:
- Request is for information held by another organisation – Information Governance team will advise which organisation where possible. Most frequent requests of these nature are for information held by ODSL or Oxfordshire County Council. Where possible the Information Governance team will provide contact information to the requester; or
- Request is a complaint about a service – Information Governance team will provide (generic) contact details for the relevant service and notify service; or
- Request concerns operational aspects of a service – Information Governance team will provide (generic) contact details for the relevant service and notify service; or
- Personal data request – if the request is for requester’s data the FOI Team will refer the request to the Data Protection team, who will advise the requester that this will be treated as a Data Subject Access request and process accordingly.
Refusals and use of exemptions
Any final decision to refuse to release information, including the application of exemptions, will be taken by the Information Governance team. Advice from the Legal Team will be sought if required.
A request may be refused where:
- The request is deemed to be vexatious or repeated (see below); or
- The cost of complying with the request exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’; or
- The information requested falls under one of the exemptions/exceptions (see below).
If the Council has grounds for not releasing the information requested, the Council will issue a written refusal notice to the requester, which will explain:
- What exemption applies and why;
- Any necessary public interest considerations taken into account;
- The Council’s internal appeals process; and/or
- The requester’s right to complain to the ICO.
The most common exemptions are as follows:
- S40 - Personal data or data that could identify an individual
- S12 - Cost/time limit of producing information would exceed £450/18hours
- S21 - Already available / published (FOI team will direct to the information)
- S22 - To be published imminently
- S30 - Held for investigation
- S31 - Criminal proceedings
- S36 - Effective conduct of public affairs – the Qualified Person is the Council’s Monitoring Officer
- S42 - Legal Professional Privilege
- S43 - Commercially sensitive
If the request is being considered under EIR the grounds for refusal can differ and will be dependent on successful application of exceptions. All EIR exceptions are subject to the Public Interest Test. The most common exceptions are as follows:
- Regulation 12(3)/13: If the information is considered to be personal data which will identify a living individual
- Regulation 12(4):
- a) Information is not held
- b) The request is manifestly unreasonable
- c) The request is too general
- d) The request is for unfinished documents or data
- e) Internal Communication
- Regulation 12(5) Refusal can be made if disclosure would adversely affect the following:
- a) International relations/Public Security/Defence
- b) The course of Justice and right to fair trial
- c) Intellectual property rights
- d) Confidentiality of proceedings
- e) Commercial confidentiality
- f) The interests of the person who provided the information
- g) Protection of the environment
The FOI team will advise whether a FOI request will be handled under EIR. The timeframes and procedure for processing EIR requests will be the same as for FOI requests, with a 20 day statutory deadline for responses, and the FOI team will advise on the application of exceptions.
Vexatious requests
The Information Governance team may, in exceptional circumstances, deem a request or requester to be vexatious but this will be decided after other options have been exhausted.
A request may be considered vexatious for the following reasons:
- It can be seen as obsessive;
- It is designed to cause disruption or annoyance and/or has the effect of harassing the authority or causing distress to staff; or
- It would impose a significant burden in terms of expense and distraction (which could be as a result of several requests being made within a short space of time); or
- It does not have any serious purpose or value.
In the event of a potentially vexatious request or requester the Information Governance Team will seek advice from the Monitoring Officer in the first instance and if necessary refer to the Council’s Vexatious Behaviour policy and procedure to take measures to restrict access to the Council. Information requests may be refused as vexatious/manifestly unreasonable under Freedom of Information/Environment Information Regulations, seeking guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office if appropriate e.g. repeat requester of clearly vexatious requests.
In the event of other council services or officers receiving the vexatious request(s) they should notify the Information Governance Team as soon as possible and wait for advice before responding. If services have been subject to vexatious behaviour from the complainant through ways other than FOI requests e.g. making unfounded complaints, contacting the service in a manner considered vexatious, disruptive participation in public meetings, they should advise the Information Governance team of this. The Information Governance team will refer to the Council’s Vexatious Behaviour policy in deciding its course of action.
