Thank you for your email received on the 12th of August 2026 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.
As you may be aware, the purpose of 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.
You asked the following
I am requesting information for the following:
Since IBCA began assessing claims, approximately how many claims have been received in which Anti-D immunoglobulin administered in the UK has been identified by the claimant as the source of Hepatitis C infection, and of those claims, how many have been accepted, rejected, or remain under consideration?
Our response
IBCA is unable to fulfil the entirety of your request that is within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). 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’. This is because in order to respond to the request, it would take up a significant amount of staff time on average a conservative minimum of 2,000 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 to assist applicants in refining their request when refusing a request under section 12. To assist you, it will be helpful to explain that IBCA does not categorise its records to track Anti-D immunoglobulin as the source of the Hepatitis C infection. Therefore, any attempt to identify this data would require a manual process that will exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of 18 hours of staff time. We may be able to provide figures regarding Hepatitis C infections as a collective, should you wish to refine or amend your request.