Wendy Stephen v The Information Commissioner & Anor

This is an appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner (“the Commissioner”) dated 16 December 2024, reference IC-320021-Q5B0 (“the Decision Notice”).

The hearing took place via Cloud Video Platform on Wednesday 15 October 2025. The Tribunal was satisfied that it was fair and just to conduct the hearing in this manner. No adjustments were requested by any party. The Appellant represented herself. The First Respondent did not attend. The Second Respondent was represented by Mr Remi Reichhold, Counsel, and Ms Gemma Staniforth, Solicitor.

The appeal relates to the application of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the FOIA”). It concerns information that would be held by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA”). The LAA is an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice (“the MoJ”), which is the relevant public authority for the purposes of FOIA. All references in this decision are therefore to the MoJ for the purposes of consistency.

The Appellant made the request which is the subject of this appeal on 10 May 2024 in writing as follows:

“Under the freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information:

Please provide copies of all amendments to the MMR litigation [MPA 94/2] Authority to Do Contract Work [26/9/94] awarded to Alexander Harris Solicitors [7/9/99] between that date and 1/10/03”.

The MoJ responded in writing on 10 June 2024 as follows:

“We can confirm that the MOJ holds all of the information you have requested. However, to comply with the request as it currently stands would exceed the cost limit set out in the FOIA.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA means a public authority is 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 represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days locating, retrieving, and extracting the information.

Where more than one request is received for the same or similar information, section 5(2) of the FOI and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 allows public authorities to aggregate requests when estimating if the appropriate limit is exceeded”.

The Appellant submitted a request for an internal review on the same date. She stated that she had made previous requests pursuant to the FOIA, namely on 14 September 2023 (responded to on 09 October 2023), 08 November 2023 (responded to on 04 December 2023), on 31 March 2024 (responded to on 29 April 2024), and on 30 April 2024 (responded to on 10 May 2024). She stated that “while I accept that the scope of my request exceeds the costs cap/time limit and I am very happy to adjust my request, I submit that there is no grounds for refusing the request on the basis that it is “same or similar information””. The Appellant submitted that the contracts that were the subject of her previous requests were separate agreement relating to separate solicitors and, save for all being drawn up in the course of the MMR litigation, they were otherwise not the same or similar in any regard. She also stated that the MoJ were not taking a consistent approach in applying the grounds for refusal under FOIA as they had not sought to apply any restriction relating to “60 consecutive working days” prior to the request that was made on 10 May 2024.

The MoJ responded to the request for an internal review on 08 July 2024. The internal review concluded that the MoJ’s response, namely that the requested information was exempt from disclosure under section 12(1) of the FOIA, was compliant with the requirements of that Act.

The MoJ stated that the Appellant had made three requests within twenty-nine working days, namely the requests made on 31 March 2024, 30 April 2024 and 10 May 2024. All of the requests related to the “Authority to do Contract Work” issued to firms of solicitors in relation to the MMR litigation, which were deemed to be requests for the same or similar information.

The reviewer then stated the following:

“I am satisfied that the MOJ was entitled to aggregate, in reliance on section 12(4) of FOIA, the time it would take to answer all three of those FOIA requests and use that total aggregated time when considering whether your requests exceeded the appropriate limit. The MOJ’s response noted that you had made requests for information in the past 60 working days, and as such it has already expended some costs attributable to the appropriate limit under section 12(1) of the FOIA.

The LAA’s records in relation to the MMR litigation are held as paper, and not electronic, records. There are 30 boxes each containing approximately 24 paper files and ring binders. The LAA would be required to sift through each box in order to locate the information to respond to your third request. The LAA undertook such a process in relation to your two previous requests. As set out above, the time taken for one person to locate, retrieve and extract the information requested across all three of those requests has been aggregated and found to be in excess of the “appropriate limit” under section 12(1) of the FOIA”.

The internal review also concluded that the MoJ had provided sufficient information to enable the Appellant to refine her requests pursuant to its duty to provide advice and assistance under section 16(1) of FOIA.

The Appellant lodged a complaint with the Commissioner on 11 July 2024 in relation to the way in which her request had been considered. In particular, she stated that:

The complaint was accepted on 24 July 2024. On 15 October 2024, the Commissioner wrote to the MoJ asking them to reconsider the way in which they had handled the request and to respond to a series of questions. With the Appellant’s consent, the Commissioner also sent the Appellant’s detailed grounds of complaint to the MoJ and invited them to also consider those grounds as part of their investigation response.

The Commissioner’s letter expressly stated that “After looking at our guidance, and in light of the passage of time, you may decide to reverse or amend your position. If you do, please notify the complainant and me within the timeframe specified at the end of this letter”. It also stated that “you may decide to apply a new exemption”.

On 11 November 2024 the MoJ wrote to the Appellant, maintaining that the original refusal to provide the information pursuant to section 12(2) of the FOIA [to note, this was a typographical error and should have referred to section 12(1)] was correct at the time that the decision was made. The letter went on to state “However, given the passage of time since the previous requests with which it was originally aggregated, we are treating your request as a fresh request for this information (as received on 15 October 2024) to resolve your complaint”.

The letter confirmed that the MoJ held the information that had been requested and provided a one-page document titled ‘Amendment Number 2 – Amendment to Contract’.

On 11 November 2024 the Appellant contacted the Commissioner. She stated that she had already received a copy of the one-page document pursuant to an earlier request. She also stated that the one-page document was a record of the transfer of the contract between two named firms of solicitors, rather than copies of all amendments to the contract when it was held by Alexander Harris Solicitors which was what she had actually asked for in her request.

The Appellant further stated that, as the document had previously been disclosed without any suggestion that the search for it has exceeded the costs cap, it was unclear how it could have done so in relation to the request that is the subject of the appeal.

The further complaint by the Appellant was conveyed by the Commissioner to the MoJ on 12 November 2024, and they subsequently responded in writing on 18 November 2024. Dealing with the complaint that the information that had been disclosed was not that which had been sought, the MoJ stated the following:

“Upon receipt of your email the LAA manually re-checked all of the documentation it held relating to the MMR litigation. It was unable to locate any other documents which on its face appeared to be an amendment made to the Authority to Do Contract Work in the dates specified in Miss Stephens’ request.

The LAA disclosed the document on 11 November, as it reasonably considered it to fall within the scope of Miss Stephens’ request because it was specifically titled as being an ‘Amendment to Contract’.

Based on its understanding of Miss Stephens’ request and the parameters set out therein it does not consider that it holds further information within the scope of the request”.

Regarding the previous reliance on section 12 of the FOIA, the MoJ stated that the request had been aggregated with previous requests that had been sent by the Appellant seeking similar information and so, at the time that the final request was made, the cost limit had already been exceeded. The section 12(1) exemption had therefore been applied to the final request but not to the earlier requests.

The MoJ also stated that:

“…As such, the majority of information, including all contract documentation is held in paper format only.

The records are extensive comprising over 100 individual files each containing thousands of pages of documents. These files are not indexed or in any particular order and so it is necessary to search the entirety of the files each time a new request comes in. Given the way in which the files are stored any search has to be manual”.

The MoJ stated that the amount of information that fell within the scope of the request had little bearing on the cost limit, as the MoJ would not have known that the information which fell to be disclosed would be limited to one page or that it had previously been disclosed to the Appellant until the entirety of the files had been reviewed.

The MoJ’s response was sent to the Appellant on 19 November 2024. She responded in writing on the same date stating that earlier disclosures by the MoJ had revealed that the previous two contracts had been subject to multiple amendments, thereby inferring that there would also be amendments relating to the contract when it was held by Alexander Harris Solicitors. She stated that the fact that the MoJ had indicated that they had to manually search over one hundred files in response to her request is indicative of the fact that there is no register of content / index complying with section 2.3.9 of the Code of Practice issued under section 46 of FOIA. She stated that a review of the entirety of the files would not have been necessary if the MoJ had had a system in place that was compliant with the Code to allow easy identification and retrieval.

The Appellant’s further response from 19 November 2024 was conveyed by the Commissioner to the MoJ on the same date. The MoJ responded in writing on 26 November 2024, in which it expressly confirmed the following in relation to the Appellant’s request that it had no information to disclose:

“Based on its understanding of Miss Stephens’ request and the parameters set out therein the LAA does not consider that it holds further information within the scope of the request ie. there are no documents setting out amendments to the Contract/Authority to do Contract Work in the period Alexander Harris held the Contract”.

It was further asserted that the LAA considered that it does meet the requirements set out in the Code of Practice, stating as follows:

“The LAA considers that it does meet the requirements set out in the Code of Practice in that it has a system in place to identify, locate and retrieve all files and information relating specifically to the MMR Multi Party Action litigation funded under legal aid. This enables the precise files to be requested from offsite archive in order to review and locate specific documents. The files are all assigned unique reference numbers and can be located and called for to obtain individual documents within the files. It is not, for example, the case that the specific case files cannot be identified and retrieved without undertaking a full manual search of all historic case files stored in archive.

Each box is further subdivided into sections to enable more targeted searches when specific documents are requested. However, where open ended requests not seeking a specific document/documents are made it is always necessary to review the entirety of the file before the LAA can conclusively determine whether or not it holds the information within the scope of a particular request.

……the case files are very historic and pre-date use of electronic case management systems and digital file structures. The LAA has much more sophisticated tools and processes in place to enable the effective and efficient location and retrieval of information that is stored in digital format”.

The MoJ’s further response was provided to the Appellant on 26 November 2024, who responded to the Commissioner on the same date to query why the MoJ had stated that they “did not consider” that they held any further information, rather than conclusively stating that they did not hold any such information. She reiterated that it was difficult to accept that no amendments/alterations were created during the years that Alexander Harris Solicitors held the contract, given that several such amendments had been created when the contract was held by two previous firms of solicitors.

The Appellant also stated that it was difficult to reconcile the information that had been provided on varying occasions by the MoJ, noting that:

“What was initially explained as a costly laborious task involving many working hours manually sifting through thousands of pages of documents due to the fact they were not indexed or in any particular order is now argued to be a slick system allowing for the location and retrieving of files, with unique identifying reference numbers, and no manual search required.

…….Responses to my FOIA request have, from the outset, been the subject of numerous mixed messages and conflicting statements. Against that backdrop I am not confident that everything possible has been undertaken to identify the requested information”.

The Appellant sent a further email to the Commissioner on 27 November 2024, in which she concluded that “I would respectfully ask that the ICO consider that given the conflicting responses from the LAA/MOJ re the status of their storage and file location and retrieval policies that it is not possible to state with any degree of certainty that further information relevant to my request is not held by them”.

Following the sharing of the Appellant’s further email by the Commissioner with the MoJ, the MoJ sent a further email on 10 December 2024, in which it disputed that it had provided conflicting statements about its ability to search for information. The MoJ confirmed that all archived files have a unique reference number and can therefore be located and called for to obtain individual documents within the files. However, the case files themselves were not indexed or in any particular order, meaning that it would be necessary to manually search through all of the individual files relating to the funding of the MMR litigation in the case of the Appellant’s request.

The MoJ also provided responses to a series of specific questions that had been asked by the Commissioner, stating as follows:

The Decision Notice was issued on 16 December 2024.

The Commissioner’s decision was that, on the balance of probabilities, the MoJ did not hold any further information than that which had been provided to the Appellant.

The Commissioner did not consider the MoJ’s initial reliance on section 12 of the FOIA as the MoJ revised their reliance of that provision during the course of the Commissioner’s investigation.

In the Decision Notice, the Commissioner noted that “it is seldom possible to prove with absolute certainty whether the requested information is held”. He also noted that he was “not expected to prove categorically whether any further information is held; he is only required to make a judgment on whether further information is held on the civil standard of proof of the balance of probabilities”.

Having considered the explanation provided by the MoJ (as outlined above), the Commissioner was satisfied that the MoJ undertook appropriate searches in order to ascertain whether or not it held any further relevant recorded information. On the balance of probabilities, the Commissioner found that no further recorded information within the scope of the request was held by the MoJ.

The Appellant lodged her appeal on 15 January 2025.

The Appellant raised six Grounds of Appeal as follows:

In conclusion, the appeal notice stated:

“I respectfully suggest that the ICO has erred in their application of the “Balance of Probability” test in failing to give due consideration to the way in which the LAA/MOJ have handled this request from the outset and the many different descriptions they provided re the state of their archiving procedures. In addition no consideration has been given to the likelihood of no amendments to the contract having been carried out during the time it was held by Alexander Harris in light of the many changes evidenced by earlier FOIA’s in respect of other groups of solicitors who previously held the contract.

The conduct of the LAA/MOJ in initially describing an archiving system which was less than proficient and then switching to accounts of a state of the art retrieval processes following the intervention of the IOC doesn't instil confidence which when coupled with the failure of both the LAA/MOJ and the ICO to correctly interpret the contents of Amendment 2 suggests that the Balance of Probability ‘percentage’ could be significantly less than that determined by the ICO in this case”.

The GRC1 Notice of Appeal was submitted at a later date, namely on 03 March 2025, owing to the original notice of appeal not being located on the Tribunal’s electronic system.

The remedies sought in the GRC1 were (i) a further search of the MOJ archives; (ii) an explanation to be provided in the event that no relevant material was identified; and (iii) disclosure of amendments/alterations to the Contract to Do Work authorised by the LAA to Alexander Harris Solicitors.

The Commissioner lodged his response on 19 May 2025, in which he maintained that the Decision Notice was correct.

The Commissioner confirmed that the relevant test was whether a public authority holds information, on the balance of probabilities – in other words, whether information is, on the evidence, more likely to be held than not.

The Commissioner’s response, in essence, was:

The Commissioner’s conclusion in his response was that he remained satisfied that he was right to decide on the balance of probabilities, that the MoJ did not hold any more information within the scope of the Appellant’s request.

The MoJ lodged their response on 21 May 2025.

The MoJ’s response, in essence, was:

The MoJ concluded that they had carried out multiple searches and provided the resulting disclosure, such that the Appellant’s request had already been responded to in full. The MoJ was satisfied that they had performed reasonable searches to conclude that, on the balance of probabilities, further information in-scope of the Appellant’s request was not held.

The Appellant filed a reply on 30 May 2025. She stated that:

“I respectfully submit that the catalogue of errors, the state of the archived filing system at the LAA/MOJ and the pattern of continuously updating and issuing new amendments to contracts with previous holders of the MMR litigation contract cast doubt over whether or not the balance of probability test carried out by the ICO to determine that the LAA/MOJ did not hold any material relevant to my FOIA request (with the exception of the one page disclosed) can be reliably met in these circumstances”.

The Appellant highlighted a series of errors and inconsistencies, namely:

The Appellant also asserted that there was information in the public domain which evidenced events (such as treatment being provided in the USA) that had taken place during the time when the contract was held by Alexander Harris Solicitors and which would have required an authority and funding. There was a clear pattern of work authorised with an allocated budget for each item in previous contracts, and so she queried why there were no similar amendments for the time when the contract was held by Alexander Harris Solicitors.

The Appellant lodged an addendum to her response on 30 July 2025, in which she provided further detail of multiple events that took place during the time that Alexander Harris Solicitors held the contract and which would have required the authority of the MoJ and an allocation of funding. Those events made it more likely than not that amendments had been created to the contract. She again submitted that, on the balance of probabilities, it could not be asserted that the MoJ did not hold any further material in respect of her request.

The Appellant submitted a skeleton argument on 02 October 2025, which she supplemented in oral submissions during the hearing.

In essence, the submissions relevant to the subject of the appeal were:

Counsel for the MoJ submitted a skeleton argument on 09 October 2025, which he supplemented in oral submissions during the hearing.

In essence, the submissions relevant to the subject of the appeal were:

The relevant provisions of FOIA are as follows:

Sections 45 and 46 of FOIA direct the Secretary of State to issue Codes of Practice providing guidance to public authorities as to desirable practices in connection with the discharge of their functions under Part 1 of FOIA, and in connection with the keeping, management and destruction of their records.

Paragraph 1.12 of the Code of Practice issued pursuant to section 45 of FOIA states that:

“Public authorities need to search for requested information in order to communicate to the applicant whether the information they are seeking is held or not held by that public authority. These searches should be conducted in a reasonable and intelligent way based on an understanding of how the public authority manages its records. Public authorities should concentrate their efforts on areas most likely to hold the requested information. If a reasonable search in the areas most likely to hold the requested information does not reveal the information sought, the public authority may consider that on the balance of probabilities the information is not held”.

Paragraph 2.3.9 of the Code of Practice on the management of records issued under section 46 of FOIA states that:

“Authorities should have appropriate tools to identify, locate and retrieve information when required. An effective search capability should be maintained alongside controls to protect sensitive information”.

Whether a public authority holds material is a question of fact to be determined on the balance of probabilities (Linda Bromley v the Information Commissioner and the Environment Agency (EA/2006/0072; 31 August 2007, as approved in Andrew Preston v the Information Commissioner and the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2022] UKUT 344 (AAC)). The First-tier Tribunal held that in determining a dispute as to whether information is ‘held’ that:

“There can seldom be absolute certainty that information relevant to a request does not remain undiscovered somewhere within a public authority's records. This is particularly the case with a large national organisation like the Environment Agency, whose records are inevitably spread across a number of departments in different locations.  The Environment Agency properly conceded that it could not be certain that it holds no more information. However, it argued (and was supported in the argument by the Information Commissioner) that the test to be applied was not certainty but the balance of probabilities. This is the normal standard of proof and clearly applies to Appeals before this Tribunal in which the Information Commissioner's findings of fact are reviewed. We think that its application requires us to consider a number of factors including the quality of the public authority's initial analysis of the request, the scope of the search that it decided to make on the basis of that analysis and the rigour and efficiency with which the search was then conducted. Other matters may affect our assessment at each stage, including, for example, the discovery of materials elsewhere whose existence or content point to the existence of further information within the public authority which had not been brought to light. Our task is to decide, on the basis of our review of all of these factors, whether the public authority is likely to be holding relevant information beyond that which has already been disclosed”.

The Upper Tribunal in Andrew Preston v the Information Commissioner and the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police also noted that, importantly, in Councillor Jeremy Clyne v the Information Commissioner and London Borough of Lambeth (EA/2011/0190) the Tribunal held that the “issue for the Tribunal is not what should have been recorded and retained but what was recorded and retained”. The Tribunal was satisfied that a gap in the public authority’s documentary records reflected “inconsistent and poor administrative practice” but this did not amount to a breach of FOIA.

In Garrard v IC and the Home Office (EA/2009/0107), the First-tier Tribunal noted that:

“Where the critical issue is whether information is held, it is incumbent on the IC to analyse very carefully the searches the public authority report that they have undertaken…..It is only where no such issues arise that the IC should rely upon the assertion of the public authority that the search taken was adequate”.

A public authority must therefore carry out a reasonable search, but is not required to carry out an exhaustive search in unlikely places.

The Tribunal’s remit is governed by section 58 of FOIA. This requires the Tribunal to consider whether the decision made by the Commissioner is in accordance with the law or, where the Commissioner’s decision involved an exercise of his discretion, whether he ought to have exercised it differently. The Tribunal may receive evidence that was not before the Commissioner and may make different findings of fact from the Commissioner.

The issue for the Tribunal to determine is whether the Commissioner was correct in holding, on the balance of probabilities, that the MoJ did not hold any relevant information within the scope of the request, save for that which was disclosed, at the time that the request was made.

We read and took account of the following documents:

We also heard oral submissions by the Appellant and on behalf of the MoJ which we have taken into account.

As outlined above, the sole substantive issue for the Tribunal to determine is whether the Commissioner was correct in finding that it was more likely than not that the MoJ did not hold any further relevant information within the scope of the request at the time that the request was made.

In assessing this question, we have had regard to paragraph 1.12 of the Code of Practice issued pursuant to section 45 of FOIA which, whilst not binding, is instructive of the approach that a public authority may follow when conducting a search, namely:

The Appellant did not seek to dissuade us from considering the approach outlined in paragraph 1.12 of that Code of Practice. In addition, whilst the Appellant did question the effectiveness of the searches given the varying accounts that she understood that she had been given about the storage of the documents, she did not dispute the information that was provided by the MoJ about the factual nature of the searches that had been conducted.

The Tribunal is therefore satisfied that the following steps were taken by the MoJ in relation to the Appellant’s request:

On the basis of the information provided by the MoJ, the Tribunal is satisfied that the searches were conducted in a reasonable and intelligent way, and that they concentrated on the areas which were deemed most likely to hold the requested information.

It is not submitted by the Appellant that the MoJ would have any motive to withhold the information or that there was any reluctance to conduct a proper search, such that the Commissioner would not have been entitled to accept the responses of the MoJ at face value as to the searches that were conducted. We also note that the Appellant's request was very precisely worded, relating to amendments to a specific contract, and so we are satisfied that there would have been no ambiguity in the interpretation of what was being requested and that experienced staff would easily have been able to identify relevant documents. We have had regard to the Appellant’s submissions that the accounts that have been provided to her regarding the archiving of the files are inconsistent with one another. However, having carefully considered the wording of the responses that were sent by the MoJ to the Appellant, we are satisfied that the Commissioner’s assessment in this regard is correct – namely that the archived files are assigned unique reference numbers and can be located, but that the content of the files themselves are not indexed or in any particular order.

We also note that the Appellant has, understandably, questioned the use of the assertion by the MoJ on 18 November 2024 that they were unable to locate any further documents (other than the one-page document) which “on its face appeared to be an amendment made to the Authority to Do Contract Work” and pointed to this as evidence that the searches conducted were not rigorous. We agree with the submissions on behalf of the MoJ that the wording is “clumsy”, but equally we accept that the letter was referring to a second search and that the wording does not undermine the searches that took place.

The Appellant asserts that, based on the information that has been provided to her in response to her previous requests relating to earlier contracts, there should have been amendments to the contract with Alexander Harris Solicitors. She has also referred to a number of events during the course of the contract with Alexander Harris Solicitors including, for example, treatment received in the USA, which she states would have necessitated the issuing of funding and amendments to the contract. As the MoJ have indicated that no relevant material has been destroyed, the Appellant therefore denies that her expectations as to what material should exist are speculative and instead states that “given the precedent set by earlier FOIA releases of contractual arrangements between the LAA/MOJ and the other solicitors it is a reasonable expectation that similar existed in respect of Alexander Harris”.

Whilst we understand the rationale behind the Appellant’s submissions, we have reminded ourselves that our focus must be on whether the MoJ did hold any additional material, not whether they may or should have held any additional material.

The Tribunal’s ambit is limited to a consideration of the Decision Notice, and specifically whether the Commissioner was correct in holding, on the balance of probabilities, that the MoJ did not hold any relevant information within the scope of the request, save for that which was disclosed, at the time that the request was made. The MoJ did not pursue their initial reliance on section 12 of FOIA and it was therefore – properly – not considered by the Commissioner. The Appellant has also asserted that the MoJ failed in its duty to provide advice and assistance in accordance with section 16 of FOIA but again, following the withdrawal of reliance on section 12 of FOIA, any ground of appeal linked to the application of section 16 of FOIA also becomes academic, and we have therefore not considered it.

We note that there are a number of factual errors in the documents provided by both the MoJ and the Commissioner including, for example, the description of the one-page document, an incorrect citation of section 12(2) of FOIA, and the reference by the MoJ in their letter of 10 June 2024 that they held “all” of the information that you have requested. As conceded by the MoJ in submissions, these errors are regrettable and should not occur. However, we accept the contention by the MoJ that the errors are not material to the substantive issues in this appeal. They do not undermine the fact that two searches were carried out, and they do not undermine how the searches were carried out.

The Appellant challenged the statement made by the MoJ that she was given “a better result” than she could have obtained from the Commissioner through the MoJ agreeing to treat the complaint as a new application. We do not find this to be a helpful statement by the MoJ. The Appellant – again understandably – believed that this statement meant that she received more information by the MoJ treating her complaint as a new request than she would have otherwise done if the MoJ had continued to rely on section 12 of FOIA which, given that she had previously already received the one-page document, was incorrect. We have understood this statement to mean that, by volunteering to treat the complaint as a new request, the MoJ conducted more searches for the relevant material than they otherwise would have done. Whilst the MoJ’s statement is not material for the purposes of this appeal, we do find that it would have benefited from clarification/rephrasing by the MoJ to ensure that its meaning was clear to all parties.

We therefore determine that the Commissioner was correct in finding, on the balance of probabilities, that the MoJ did not hold any further relevant information within the scope of the request at the time that the request was made.

The Tribunal dismisses the appeal for the reasons given above.