EA/2024/0029/GDPR - [2025] UKFTT 01143 (GRC)

Discussion and conclusions

The first response which the Respondent provided to the Appellant on 19 February 2024 with a follow up review on 25 March 2024 appears to have been superseded by later events. However, the Respondent provided the Applicant with a further response to the Complaint on 7 January 2025 following issue of the Application

I am satisfied that this later response both provided an outcome to the complaint and demonstrated that the IC had given consideration to whether there were other appropriate steps which could be taken to progress the Applicant’s complaint. It appears to me therefore that there were no further appropriate steps which the IC ought reasonably to have taken to progress the complaint.  In making this decision I have given significant weight to the view of the IC as the expert regulator that there were no further appropriate steps he should have taken.

The Tribunal’s power to order progression of a complaint under section 166 is limited to ordering the Respondent to take appropriate steps to respond to a complaint, or to inform the complainant of progress or an outcome within a specified period. Once that investigation has been concluded and an outcome provided, it follows that there is no longer an investigation in respect of which an order to progress can be made under section 166(2). Section 166 is limited to narrow procedural issues and there is no further procedural failing in respect of which the Tribunal can make a decision.

The Tribunal has no power to award compensation to the Applicant. I also find that the Respondent was correct that any order for compliance under section 167 DPA must be pursued through the civil courts, not through this Tribunal.

I therefore find an outcome was provided to the Applicant’s complaint which means that the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to reopen the complaint or to order that it be reinvestigated or investigated in a particular way. I am also satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of the case, or any part of it, succeeding because the remedy sought by the Applicant is not something which is within the Tribunal’s power to grant.

The proceedings are therefore struck out under Rule 8(2)(a) because the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to deal with them and under Rule 8(3)(a) because there is no reasonable prospect of them succeeding.