Cabinet Office

The complainant submitted a request to the Cabinet Office seeking advice documents and briefing papers, presented to ministers and/or senior civil servants concerning whether it was the intention to renew the Disability Action Plan commitment to provide BSL interpretation ‘in situ’ for government press conferences. The Cabinet Office withheld the information falling within the scope of the request on the basis of sections 35(1)(a) (formulation or development of government policy)  and 35(1)(b) (Ministerial communications). The Commissioner’s decision is that the withheld information is exempt from disclosure on the basis of sections 35(1)(a) and 35(1)(b). However in relation to both exemptions the public interest in favour of disclosure of the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption.