The Information Commissioner has ruled that the Cabinet Office was not justified in refusing an FoI request for a breakdown of nearly £2m paid to staff who left government.
The request sought a list of individual payments, in 2022/23, and the reasons for them.
The Cabinet Office refused, citing data protection, claiming disclosure would contravene principles of the GDPR.
In her Decision Notice, Commissioner Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya found the rationale “lacks clarity and detail.”
She stated, “The exemption was not applied to the specific information requested by the Applicant.”
Settlement
The Commissioner noted that the authority assessed individual settlement agreements rather than the requested list.
She found that 20 of these agreements contained a clause permitting disclosure for FOI requests, “preferably on an anonymised basis”.
This means the Cabinet Office now has to either disclose the information or issue a new, clearer refusal notice within 30 days. The notice must include “a clear rationale” if the information is again withheld.