London Borough of Barnet Council

The complainant submitted a multipart request to the London Borough of Barnet (the Council) for various information about Care Act Assessments, safeguarding, Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub Referrals, subject access requests, FOIA compliance, data handling, Ombudsman cases, complaints handling, and internal decision-making. The Council refused to comply with the request on the basis of section 12 (costs exceed the appropriate limit) FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council failed to provide reasonable advice and assistance to the complainant and so did not comply with section 16 FOIA. However, the Council did not fail to respond to the complainant’s refined request for information within 20 working days and so did not breach section 10 FOIA. The Commissioner does not require further steps.