The Information Commissioner has ordered the Cabinet Office to review its Freedom of Information (FoI) response relating to the millions of pounds paid out to former government staff.

Figures released under FoI in 2023 revealed that 27 settlement agreements were reached in 2022-2023 with payments totalling £1,978,144.

A subsequent FoI request was made the Cabinet Office asking for a breakdown of these payments.

But the Cabinet Office refused to provide any information, citing an absolute exemption which applies to personal information.

Having followed the complaints procedure, the applicant then contacted the Information Commissioner requesting a review of the Cabinet Office’s decision.

The Information Commissioner has now ruled that the Cabinet Office did not properly consider the request and had relied on the exemption without enough explanation.

In a decision note, Information Commissioner Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya said the Cabinet Office is now required to review the request again and either release the information or issue a clearer refusal within 30 days.

Upholding the applicant’s request for a decision review, she concluded: ‘The authority was not justified in refusing to give information by applying the exemption.’

The FoI request had asked for a list of the individual payments made to the 27 staff in the 2022-23 financial year, showing the amounts paid to each member of staff and the reason in each case why the payments were made.

Settlement agreements can be made for a range of reasons including voluntary redundancy, compulsory redundancy and severance payments, and the Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme (MARS).

The 2023 FoI revealed that there were 47 settlement agreements in 2017-18 at a cost of £1.84m, 49 in 2018-19 at cost of £1.78m, then 44 in 2019-20 to a value of £2.44m and 33 in 2020-21 to the value of £1.23m. In 2021-22 there were with 15 at a cost of £514,722.