Civil Aviation Authority

The complainant submitted a multipart request for various costs and revenue information in respect of Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA), including Digitising Specific Category Operations (DiSCO) and Pre-Defined Risk Assessment (PDRA) applications from the Civil Aviation Authority (the CAA). The CAA provided some information but withheld some items of the request under section 43(2) (commercial interests) of the FOIA and other information on the basis of section 12 (costs exceed the appropriate limit) of the FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the CAA failed to demonstrate that section 12 is engaged in respect of item 2 of the request. The Commissioner does however accept that the CAA was entitled to rely on section 43(2) in respect of items 1b, 4a and 10b of the request. The Commissioner requires CAA to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: issue a fresh response to items 2a and 2b of the request which does not rely on section 12 of the FOIA.