Section 54: Failure to comply with notice.

Freedom of Information Act 2000 · 2000 c. 36View on legislation.gov.uk

Part IV: Enforcement

If a public authority has failed to comply with—

so much of a decision notice as requires steps to be taken,
an information notice, or
an enforcement notice,

the Commissioner may certify in writing to the court that the public authority has failed to comply with that notice.

For the purposes of this section, a public authority which, in purported compliance with an information notice—

makes a statement which it knows to be false in a material respect, or
recklessly makes a statement which is false in a material respect,

is to be taken to have failed to comply with the notice.

Where a failure to comply is certified under subsection (1), the court may inquire into the matter and, after hearing any witness who may be produced against or on behalf of the public authority, and after hearing any statement that may be offered in defence, deal with the authority as if it had committed a contempt of court.

In this section "the court" means the High Court or, in Scotland, the Court of Session.

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This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.