Annexe A - List of the Exemptions

This list is intended as a quick reference to the exemptions and tests. For the full text of each exemption, you should refer to the legislation. The purpose of this annexe is only to show what tests we will use in deciding whether or not an exemption applies to information.

Derived from the Freedom of Information Act 2000

FoI Act section	Exemption	Absolute or Qualified	Public interest test?	Substantial harm test?
21	Information accessible to applicant by other means	Absolute	No	No
22	Information intended for future publication	Qualified	Yes	Yes
23	Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters	Absolute	No	No
24	National Security	Qualified	Yes	Yes, except when a certificate has been issued under S24(3)
26	Defence	Qualified	Yes	Yes
27	International relations	Qualified	Yes	Yes
28	Relations within the United Kingdom	Qualified	Yes	Yes
29	The economy	Qualified	Yes	Yes
30	Investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities	Qualified	Yes	Yes
31	Law enforcement	Qualified	Yes	Yes
32	Court records, etc.	Absolute	No	Yes
33	Audit functions	Qualified	Yes	Yes
34	Parliamentary privilege	Absolute	No	Yes, except when a certificate has been issued under S34(3)
35	Formulation of government policy, etc.	Qualified	Yes	Yes
36	Effective conduct of public affairs	Qualified	Yes	Yes
37	Communications with Her majesty, etc. and honours	Qualified	Yes	Yes
38	Health and safety	Qualified	Yes	Yes
39	Environmental Information	Qualified	Yes	No
40 (1)	Personal information (about applicant)	Absolute	No	No
40 (2)	Personal information about others where the circumstances described in section 2(3)(f)(ii) FoIA are the case	Absolute	No	No
40 (2)	Personal information about others where the circumstances described in section 2(3)(f)(ii) FoIA are not the case	Qualified	Yes	No
41	Information provided in confidence	Absolute	No	No
42	Legal professional privilege	Qualified	Yes	Yes
43	Commercial interests	Qualified	Yes	Yes
44	Prohibitions on disclosure	Absolute	No	No

Derived from the Environmental Information Regulations

EIR 2004 regulation	Exception	Public interest test?	Substantial harm test?
12 (4) a	Information not held when request received	Yes	No
12 (4) b	Request is manifestly unreasonable	Yes	No
12 (4) c	Formulated in too general a manner	Yes	No
12 (4) d	Material is still in course of completion, unfinished documents or incomplete data	Yes	Yes
12 (4) e	Internal communications	Yes	Yes
12 (5)	Where disclosure would adversely affect -
12 (5) a	International relations, defence, national security or public safety	Yes	Yes
12 (5) b	Course of justice, fair trial, criminal or disciplinary inquiry	Yes	Yes
12 (5) c	Intellectual property rights	Yes	Yes
12 (5) d	Confidentiality of proceedings of a public authority where confidentiality is provided by law	Yes	Yes
12 (5) e	Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest	Yes	Yes
12 (5) f	Interests of person who provided information where that person: not under legal obligation to have supplied the information did not supply it in circumstances where the public authority is entitled to disclose the information apart from these regulations has not consented to disclosure	Yes	Yes
12 (5) g	Protection of the environment to which the information relates	Yes	No

Derived from the Data Protection Act 1998

The Data Protection Act 1998 and orders made under it set out exemptions from the duty to provide access to your personal data. We will apply them as they appear in the legislation.

6/9/2005