‘Alison Berridge, Alexandra Littlewood and Ciar McAndrew, public law barristers at Monckton Chambers, highlight the points of interest from April-June decisions of the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals.’
Monckton Chambers, 20th August 2019
Source: www.monckton.com
‘GMC apologises for “inadequate” checks after bogus doctor practised for 22 years.’
The Independent, 24th July 2019
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The Home Office has been accused of covering up the plight of hundreds of modern slavery victims after it was forced to disclose data it previously claimed to have “no record” of.’
The Independent, 16th July 2019
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Local authorities are failing in their duty to prosecute rogue letting agents, the National Landlords Association has claimed after its research found that more than half of 20 councils did not prosecute a single letting agent in the four-year period from 2014/15 to 2017/18.’
Local Government Lawyer, 4th July 2019
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The background, as you may recall, is that Mr Kennedy, a Times journalist, was trying to get information out of the Charity Commission in connection with the ‘Mariam Appeal’, a fund set up by George Galloway MP for the purposes of supporting Iraqi children suffering from leukaemia. Mr Kennedy wanted to get hold of the information in connection with an investigation he was conducting into whether monies collected under the name of Mariam’s Appeal had been misused. Mr Kennedy made a FOIA request to the Charity Commission, which had conducted an investigation into Mariam’s Appeal. Mr Kennedy’s request was refused on the basis that the information requested fell within the scope of s. 32 FOIA (absolute exemption concerning court records).’
Panopticon, 18th March 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘We all love nuggets, be they of gold or chicken. A couple of short recent Upper Tribunal judgments reached under FOIA may not be finger-lickin’ good, but are nonetheless worthy noting as a tasty morsel or two.In Information Commissioner v Halpin [2019] UKUT 29 (AAC) Judge Markus QC overturned an FTT decision which had held that personal data was not exempt under section 40(2) FOIA. She explained that the FTT had erred in declining to have regard to the possibility of wider disclosure to the world beyond the requestor – because the public authority would no longer have any control over the information once released – such that it had failed properly to balance the competing interests and effects of disclosure. This was a point made in GR-N v Information Commissioner & NMC [2015] UKUT 449 (AAC) and applied since. The requestor’s private motives were sufficient to form a legitimate interest, but did not form a justification for disclosure to the world at large. The FTT had also erred in failing to address the core concern of the public authority, that disclosure would lead to inappropriate complaints against or other targeting of the particular data subjects causing them stress. It was no answer to that to say that the authority had procedures to address complaints: the point was not that the complaints would be upheld but that they would have to be dealt with when they would not have been without disclosure.’
Panopticon, 28th February 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Two recent decisions of the FTT on confidential information are of interest, one under FoIA, the other under the EIR, with a local authority being the public authority in both cases.’
Panopticon, 7th February 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Freedom of information (FOI) laws should be updated to account for the risks to transparency and accountability in the performance of public services where they are outsourced to businesses, the UK’s information commissioner has said.’
OUT-LAW.com, 1st February 2019
Source: www.out-law.com
‘The Information Commissioner has called for the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) to be updated to include organisations providing a public function.’
Local Government Lawyer, 28th January 2019
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘A couple of recent Upper Tribunal cases have been handed down on the section 35(1) FOIA exemption for the formulation or development of government policy and for Ministerial communications. Both concern documents produced at the highest levels of Government. Both nudge the jurisprudence on a little bit, and both are worth being aware of for those concerned.’
Panoptiocn, 14th January 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Simon Goodley explains how the Guardian uncovered the secret world of convicted landlords who continue to operate – and exploit – with impunity.’
The Guardian, 8th December 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘The refusal rate for people applying to stay in the UK after suffering domestic violence more than doubled between 2012 and 2016 after the government pledged to make the UK a “hostile environment for illegal immigrants”.’
The Guardian, 16th August 2018
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘A prisoner was reimbursed 57 pence as compensation after a magazine they owned was lost or damaged by prison staff, as new figures reveal that over £1 million has been given out to convicts for lost property over the past five years.’
Daily Telegraph, 13th August 2018
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘It is not uncommon for public authorities who hold statistical data to decline to disclose specific figures in categories for which the number is fewer than five, on the basis of a fear that the number of affected people is sufficiently small that they are reasonably identifiable. In other words, they rely on section 40(2) FOIA to withhold the number.That approach has now been considered by the Upper Tribunal in Information Commissioner v Miller [2018] UKUT 229 (AAC). That case concerned a request to (what is now) MHCLG for their information supplied by local authorities on a range of homelessness statistics. In relation to parts of the dataset which related to five or fewer individuals, section 40(2) was relied on. The FTT disagreed in a decision on the papers and the ICO appealed.’
Panopticon, 3rd August 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘The procedural exemptions in sections 12 and 14 of FOIA are some of the most commonly used, and most commonly litigated, provisions of the legislation. Unsurprisingly, they have led to a disproportionate degree of appellate involvement. More surprisingly, they continue to do so. Three recent Upper Tribunal decisions add to that body of jurisprudence which ought to be considered by authorities faced with burdensome requests. This post is, as a result, quite burdensome itself.’
Panopticon, 3rd August 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Stratford-on-Avon District Council need not disclose advice given by an independent person in a case over a councillor’s conduct, the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) has said.’
Local Government Lawyer, 10th July 2018
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Emma-Louise Fenelon discusses the challenges around secrecy, anonymity and public information in major inquests and inquiries in a talk recorded at One Crown Office Row’s 2018 seminar.’
Law Pod UK, 14th June 2018
Source: audioboom.com
‘As is so often the way in information rights, the Upper Tribunal reaches a perfectly sensible decision and gives practical guidance which others can actually apply, only for the Court of Appeal to insist on saying mostly the same thing but less clearly and less helpfully. As a result, the Upper Tribunal then has to reconsider the area and steer the law back to a productive course. So it was in Department for Transport & Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency & Porsche Cars GB Ltd v Information Commissioner & Cieslik [2018] UKUT 127 (AAC) (Cieslik), on the – to put it politely – potential interpretative difficulties on the issue of the meaning of “environmental information” under the EIR following the ‘guidance’ of the Court of Appeal in Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy v Information Commissioner & Henney [2017] EWCA Civ 844 (see here). And the judgment of Judge Markus QC in Cieslik is a genuinely important and valuable exercise in course correction.’
Panopticon, 27th April 2018
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘A councillor is facing trial for destroying records about a system to catch fouling dog owners in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.’
Daily Telegraph, 25th April 2018
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
© Inner Temple Library 2019