[2025] UKUT 308 (AAC)

I remind myself of the extent to which the Appellant’s case before the First-tier Tribunal relied on the law of confidence. Of the Appellant’s three grounds of appeal before the Tribunal, her arguments were mainly concerned with the first ground which was that a duty of confidence in relation to the Slides would be incompatible with an implied statutory obligation under section 405 EA 1996 to provide parents with sex education teaching materials. So far as the application of the law of confidence in other respects was concerned, the Appellant’s case bore little resemblance to Mr Moss’ sophisticated and wide-ranging arguments before the Upper Tribunal.

If section 405 EA 1996 did not exclude a duty of confidence, the Appellant’s alternative argument before the First-tier Tribunal was that SoSE would not suffer detriment were the information disclosed since all third-party providers of sex education should be commissioned on the understanding that their teaching materials would be made available to parents. In any event, the School would be able to avail itself of the public interest defence if SoSE brought an action for breach of confidence. At the hearing before the Tribunal, it was also argued that, if SoSE’s materials were disclosed and used by other providers, ‘it can be protected by copyright’.