[2025] UKUT 308 (AAC)

This is the only ground concerned with the Appellant’s other request for information, in the form of the identities of the SoSE facilitators at the Session.

As has been the case with the Appellant’s other grounds of appeal, it is important to remind myself of the Appellant’s case before the First-tier Tribunal. She argued:

there was a strong legitimate interest in parents knowing who is teaching their children, especially who is teaching sex education. This interest is recognised in the Statutory Guidance which expects those teaching sex education to be ‘named’ in schools’ sex education policies and consistent with Parliament having conferred on parents the right to withdraw their children from sex education (First-tier Tribunal notice of appeal);

processing, in the form of disclosure of information, was necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued. Knowing a name would allow the Appellant properly to research an individual and make an effective complaint. This was an interest of anyone concerned with safeguarding in schools and it was to be noted that, unlike teachers, there was “no separate professional regulation of these individuals” (First-tier Tribunal skeleton argument);

the opposing interest of ‘those named individuals’ was comparatively weak since they were public-facing individuals, the information related only to their professional life, as individuals teaching sex education they should expect their names to be made public, and their names would already have been known to pupils at the Session and other school staff (notice of appeal);

that the School failed to include identities in its sex education policy, as the Statutory Guidance required, raised concerns about the appropriateness of the unnamed individuals and the extent of their vetting by the School (notice of appeal). The School’s statutory safeguarding duties should carry no weight given the absence of any evidence that the School did any vetting or otherwise checked appropriateness but, even if they had, there is no guarantee of infallibility nor would it justify excluding parents from the safeguarding process and it was also relevant that SoSE was regulated only by the Charity Commission and not subject to inspection (skeleton argument);

the Appellant’s right to make a statutory complaint was ineffective, or less effective, if she did not know the names of those teaching her daughter (notice of appeal);

knowing identities would improve the Appellant’s understanding of what was taught by SoSE facilitators, and the Commissioner was wrong to argue otherwise. If a person publicly advocates for a particular position, that may indeed improve understanding (skeleton argument);

the Commissioner relied on a ‘bizarre’ argument that, since the Appellant’s daughter had already been taught by SoSE facilitators, her concerns were no longer live. At the time of the request for information, the School proposed to use SoSE again and there was a risk that the Appellant’s daughter might do online research into an inappropriate individual (skeleton argument);

the Commissioner’s claim that disclosure would place individuals at risk from harassment or abuse was rejected as having an “entirely unclear” evidential basis (skeleton argument);