[2023] UKUT 245 (AAC)

By an email sent on 26 July 2017 the Appellant made two requests:

“[1] We note that you have said you believe the rest of the report (and the evidence on which it was based) is exempt under section 30 and /or 40 of the FOI Act. Can we ask for this to be reviewed? Without going into details at this stage could we ask that some compromise, for instance the redaction of names, be considered? The HLA has emphatically never sought to intimidate anyone. Of course there have been some difficult situations all round.

…

[2] I would also like to ask you to give special consideration to releasing the documents and notes relating to the interviews I took part in myself (as well as those of other committee members such as [name redacted] and [name redacted] as I think these are not subject to the same confidentiality concerns.”

The Appellant later (on 16 February 2018) provided clarifications of the scope of his requests in response to a request from the First Respondent (see Appeal Bundle 2, Tab F page 1699):

“Thank you for your emails of 31^st January and 13^th February. As you know I have taken some time to consider what you wrote and to discuss it with colleagues on the committee of our Association. In terms of what you require in the short term I believe there is little to add to the scope of the case. Request 2 is in fact a part of Request 1, just one that might be slightly easier/less contentious to deal with. This is because when we refer to ‘the evidence on which [the report] was based’ we mean the documents and notes of interviews.”

HfH initially responded that it didn’t hold the information requested. On 20 November 2017 the Appellant complained to the Information Commissioner, who commenced an investigation.

HfH wrote to the Appellant on 25 October 2018 indicating that it did, after all, hold information within the scope of his request, but maintained that most of the information requested was exempt under section 41 FOIA and was otherwise personal information, exempt under section 40 FOIA.

On 5 February 2019 the Information Commissioner issued a Decision Notice which upheld HfH’s decision that the information identified in both requests was exempt information under sections 40 and/or 41 FOIA.