[2025] UKUT 114 (AAC)

Given that both parties are in agreement that the decision of the Tribunal contained errors of law and that the appeal should be allowed and the decision of the Tribunal remade, I am satisfied that I do not need to embark on a detailed exegesis of the decision of the Tribunal. It is sufficient to say that, insofar as the parties are in agreement about the extent of the errors made by the Tribunal in relation to grounds 1 and 2 of the appeal, I accept those submissions and accept that it follows that the decision of the Tribunal should be set aside. I do not therefore need to consider whether the Cabinet Office is right that the grounds of appeal should succeed to a wider extent or on additional bases beyond the ambit of the concessions made by the ICO. Mr Coppel KC for the Cabinet Office candidly accepted in his opening submissions that the matters on which the parties continued to disagree as to the grounds of appeal were not matters of substance, or as Mr Perry put it in his oral submissions, there was some remaining dispute “at the edges” about where the errors of the Tribunal lay. It is therefore sufficient to set aside the decision of the Tribunal that grounds 1 and 2 succeed to the extent agreed by the parties and to decide that the decision of the Tribunal should be set aside for error of law.

For these reasons, and at least to the extent agreed between the parties, the appeal is allowed.