There needs to be some measured reflection on the outcome, what happened & why.
The Department, at the height of a pandemic, published details of contracts outside of the time limit (they didn't not publish the details) and this was found by the court to be them acting unlawfully.
But unlawfully doesn't mean criminally, no one is going to prison for this.
A consultant I'm working with has several FOI's into governement departments & they are around 3-6 weeks overdue. This is unlawful.
I've checked with ICO & at the moment they will only act if the FOI is being ignored, if it has been acknowledged then the ICO acknowledge that civil servants are being co-opted onto Covid work, are working remotely etc & that there will be inevitable delays due to these changes in staffing levels and working practices. Which seems fair enough really, I don't expect the minister to resign over this (I would love it if they did mind).
So why did the Good Law Project go to the trouble of taking the case to court? Because it established that they could.
The government argued their case had no merit as they hadn't submitted a bid for a contract and so had no economic reason for finding out the results within the statutory time limit.
The GLP have other bigger cases coming to the High Court soon including how the contracts were bid for & awarded, in which the Government's defence is that as the GLP aren't an economic operator with direct involvement with the matter, therefore their case has no standing and so it should be dismissed.
This judgement dismisses that defence, so should make it harder for the government to hide any malfeasance from the public in these matters.