[2025] UKUT 74 (AAC)

I deal with Ground 1 last because it treads much of the same territory as Grounds 1 to 4, but purely as a ‘reasons challenge’.

The appellant argues, first, that the First-tier Tribunal has provided no reason for concluding that the Commissioner is not a biased regulator. I disagree. As I have explained above when dealing with Ground 2, as the appellant was not advancing a case that the Commissioner was disqualified from dealing with his complaint on grounds of apparent bias, the Tribunal did not need to deal with his bias argument as if that was his contention. Saying the argument was “speculative and unproven” was a sufficient way of articulating that the appellant had not done enough to make out either apparent or actual bias. The Tribunal properly focused on the evidence he presented that potentially went to ‘actual bias’ in this case, i.e. the 7 February 2023 and provided adequate reasons for rejecting that argument.

The appellant of course also argues that the Tribunal provided no reason for rejecting his interpretation of the 7 February 2023 email, but in my judgment the Tribunal did provide adequate reasons: it stated that the email “did no more than indicate that a lesson learned process should follow the outcome” and that “it did not lead to a conclusion of fact … that there was a view internally that there had been a breach of data protection obligations on the part of the Commissioner”. The Tribunal is not obliged to provide “reasons for reasons”, and there is in reality little that can be said about why a short email like this is read one way rather than another. I was able to say more above when dealing with Ground 2 because that was necessary to deal with the arguments raised on appeal, but the Tribunal’s reasons were adequate to deal with the appeal as it was presented at first instance.

The appellant complains that at [13] the First-tier Tribunal failed to provide adequate reasons for its conclusion that “there was nothing before it that gave rise to any indication that the Commissioner had not carried out an adequate investigation”. It goes on to explain the reasons for that conclusion as being that “the Commissioner … had considered the Applicant’s complaint, reviewed the correspondence stored on the Commissioner’s case management system, engaged with the IA team and inquired about the handling of the Applicant’s requests” and provided the appellant “with an outcome on 17 February 2023, further clarification on 27 February 2023 and a case review of that outcome on 25 July 2023”. The Tribunal has thus given appropriate reasons for its conclusion. The appellant’s complaint is that the Tribunal has not gone in detail through his submissions as to the additional steps that the Commissioner could have taken, but a Tribunal does not err in law if it does not deal with every item of evidence or the detail of every argument raised by a party. Given the starting point (discussed under Ground 2 above) that the Tribunal, when deciding for itself whether appropriate steps have been taken, should generally afford respect to the Commissioner’s views as to the extent to which his resources should be deployed in responding to that particular complaint, the reasons the Tribunal gives for its conclusion are adequate.

The appellant complains that the First-tier Tribunal failed to give adequate reasons for concluding that the duty of candour did not apply. However, I have when dealing with Ground 2 explained how it is the appellant who has misunderstood the nature of the duty of candour. If the decision is read with a proper understanding of that duty, it becomes clear both why the Tribunal did not consider it needed to deal with the legal issue as to whether it applied in this case, and why the Tribunal concluded that it did not require further witness statements or underlying documentary evidence in order to deal with the appellant’s section 166 application.

Finally, the appellant complains that the Tribunal did not provide adequate reasons for rejecting his arguments about breach of the overriding objective. However, the Tribunal was not required to deal with these arguments. The Tribunal’s task was to deal with the section 166 application in accordance with the overriding objective. Breach of the overriding objective is not a free-standing ground on which a person may bring a complaint to the First-tier Tribunal, and on appeal to the Upper Tribunal, it is only an argument that can succeed if the alleged breach was material to the decision. For the reasons I have given under Ground 5, there was no such breach in this case.

Ground 1 is therefore dismissed.