FOI 0075 - Level 3 payments

Requested: 28 October 2025

Responded: 25 November 2025

Published: 17 February 2026

This is IBCA's response to Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

Thank you for your email received on 28 October 2025, in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.

The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”) is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Infected Blood Compensation Authority), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and we provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted by the Data Directorate of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and we provide a response for your attention.

You asked the following:

1) I need full information of numbers of victims affected that have severe fibrosis that have been

a) offered level 3 payments

b) have received a level 3 payment.

IBCA's response:

IBCA is unable to fulfil the entirety of your request. The reasons for this are set out below.

Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 exempts IBCA from the duty to comply with a request for information if the estimated cost of complying would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’. The ‘appropriate limit’ is specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, and for IBCA this is set at £450.This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 working hours in determining whether IBCA holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting it.

Regulation 4 (4) of the Fees Regulations 2004 sets out that costs incurred in determining whether the requested information is held, locating, retrieving and extracting information are to be estimated at a rate of £25 per staff member per hour, expected to be spent on those activities. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether IBCA holds the information and locating, retrieving and extracting it. Where the time for compliance with a request would exceed 18 hours, a request can be refused.

The cost of complying with your request exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’. While IBCA does hold the records that contain information relating to affected claimants who have severe fibrosis, however, the data is unstructured. A very conservative estimate is that it would take up a significant amount of staff time on average a minimum of 700 hours. This is in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450/18 hours of staff time. Therefore, IBCA is unable to provide you with the information you are seeking.

Under section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act, IBCA has a duty to provide advice and assistance when refusing a request under section 12, to assist applicants in refining their request. IBCA may be able to comply with your request within the appropriate limit if you were to refine and limit the scope of your request to the number of overall level 3 payments, however, we cannot to distinguish between the different infection descriptions.