[2024] UKUT 290 (AAC)

At the permission stage I had to be satisfied only that the grounds for which permission was given were “arguable”. At this stage I must be satisfied that the Strike Out Decision did involve a material error of law.

Despite the attractive submissions made by counsel for the Information Commissioner, I am satisfied that the reasons given by the First-tier Tribunal judge for the Strike Out Decision were inadequate. Reasons need not be extensive, as long as they are clear and they inform the reader how and why the tribunal resolved the main points in issue. A court or tribunal’s judgment or reasons must be read as a whole and having regard to its “context and structure” (per Munby P in Re F (Children) [2016] EWCA Civ 546 at [22]), and it was open to the First-tier Judge to place reliance on the Information Commissioner’s findings in the reasons he gave for the Strike Out Decision (see DfE v IC & Whitmey [2018] UKUT 348 (AAC), per Judge Jacobs at [17]-[18]. However, in this case the very sparse reasons of the First-tier Tribunal simply require the reader to import too much from extraneous sources.

It is apparent from his reasons that the First-tier Tribunal judge broadly accepted the Information Commissioner’s case. However, this was a strike out application and the striking out of the proceedings required the First-tier Tribunal judge to satisfy himself that Mr Puchooa’s case had no reasonable prospect of success. In this context, I consider that, in order to clear the hurdle of ‘adequacy’, the judge’s reasons had to grapple with that higher standard and to provide Mr Puchooa with some explanation of why the Information Commissioner’s submissions were preferred over his, and so why he lost. They didn’t.

While it may have been open to the First-tier Tribunal judge in law and on the evidence before him to strike out the proceedings, his explanation of how and why he decided as he did falls short of the standard of ’adequacy’ in a second respect because his reasons don’t permit an appellate court to assess whether the determination was sustainable (Re F (Children) at [22]-[23]).