Number of FoIA requests made to the CPS

Request 

In 2022 how maby FOIA requestes were received by the CPS?
How many were rejected on the basis that it would cost more that £750 to provide an answer?

Response

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does hold formation within the scope of your request which is publicly available and therefore is exempt and withheld from disclosure under section 21 - ‘Information accessible to applicant by other means’ of the FIOA.

Please see the attached section 17 Refusal Notice (reproduced below) which explains this exemption in further detail.

However, under section 16 of the FOI Act we have an obligation to advise what, if any, information may assist you with your request. Published data can be found on the link provided below – 

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/freedom-of-information-statistics-annual-2022

Furthermore it should be noted that Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government is set at £600. This means that the appropriate limit will be exceeded if it would require more than 24 hours work in determining whether the CPS holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

We therefore have no recorded information concerning a £750 cost limit and so the data referred to on the above link concerns the S.12 cost exemption cited above.

Section 17 Notice under the Freedom of Information Act 2000

WITHHOLDING INFORMATION

Section 21 states Information accessible to applicant by other means.

(1)  Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 21 is exempt information.

(2)  For the purposes of subsection (1)—
(a) Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and
(b) Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.

(3)  For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public authority and does not fall within subsection (2) (b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself on request, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordance with, the scheme.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption which means there is no requirement to carry out a public interest test if the requested information is exempt.