xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx
Room 401
www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk
70 Whitehall
London, SW1A 2AS
Ariel Eliasov
Via: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Our ref: IR2021/02983
8 March 2021
Dear Ariel Eliasov
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REF: FOI2021/02598 - INTERNAL REVIEW
We refer to your email of 10 February in which you requested an Internal Review. Your request
for an Internal Review was prompted by the Cabinet Office’s response of 10 February to your
request for information (reference FOI2021/02598) under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(‘the Act’).
This letter constitutes the outcome of the Internal Review. My findings are below.
The request
On 7 February you submitted a request for information. You wrote:
'
Could you please provide a list of every government department and their full contact
information. And their latest budget.'
The response
The Cabinet Office responded to you on 10 February. It informed you that:
‘…some of the information you requested is held by the Cabinet Office.
Information you have requested is exempt under section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information
Act. Section 21 exempts information if this information is reasonably accessible to the applicant
by other means. Section 21 is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to
consider whether the public interest favours disclosure of this information. The information you
require on government departments can be found at https://www.gov.uk/. You should contact
individual government departments for any further information.’
Request for an Internal Review
On 10 February, you requested an Internal Review of your request for information. You wrote:
‘
Thank you for the response I believe it is not easily accessible to find and view all of the
information that is have requested all the government departs have their own page.’
Outcome of the Internal Review
I have carefully reviewed the handling of your request and I consider that the exemptions
at section 21(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (the Act) were properly applied.
This decision was made because information is exempt from disclosure under section 21(1) of
the Act if that information is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Section 21
is an absolute exemption and the Cabinet Office is not required to consider whether the public
interest favours disclosure of this information. The information you requested can be found by
other means. I have therefore concluded that I should uphold the decision given in our letter.
However, under section 16(1) of the Act, public authorities have a duty to provide advice and
assistance to individuals making requests for information under FOIA. Therefore, in this internal
review we can provide further details about how the information you requested can be located.
You may find it useful to note that the following link provides a list of every government
department. Contact details for each government department can also be found via this link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations. You may also find it useful to see the latest budget for every governmental department at the
time of your request:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2020-
documents/spending-review-2020#departmental-settlements. Please bear in mind that this
document was last updated 15 December 2020.
I have considered the points you make about how our original response of 10 February does
not provide you with information that is easily accessible as each department has their own
page. However, I do not consider that this means that the information you have requested does
not meet the definition of readily available. The information you requested is readily available in
the public domain and the Act does not require public authorities to create new information to
answer requests. However, we hope that the refined links that we have provided in this internal
review satisfies your request.
The Information Commissioner
This response ends the complaints process provided by the Cabinet Office. If you are not
content with the outcome of your internal review, you may apply directly to the Information
Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely
Rachel Anderson
Head of Freedom of Information
Cabinet Office