‘The government faces being taken to court if it refuses to disclose the findings of an exercise confirming the UK could not cope with a flu pandemic.’
The Guardian, 26th April 2020
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘An Upper Tribunal judge has set aside a decision by a First-tier Tribunal (FTT) that upheld – after a freedom of information request – the withholding of an agent’s advice to a local authority on the tactics it should apply in negotiations with Tesco over a proposed development.’
Local Government Lawyer, 20th April 2020
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a statement setting out its regulatory approach during the coronavirus pandemic, saying it will focus on those areas likely to cause the greatest public harm.’
Local Government Lawyer, 16th April 2020
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The First-Tier Tribunal General Regulatory Chamber (Information Rights) has – with immediate effect – stayed for a period of 28 days all proceedings under section 48 of the Data Protection Act 1998, section 162 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and section 57 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.’
Local Government Lawyer, 3rd April 2020
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘Anyone who has had a FOIA case in the national security space will have faced the near-impossible task of trying to work out what on earth Corderoy & Ahmed v Information Commissioner & Attorney General & Cabinet Office [2017] UKUT 495 (AAC) means; a front-runner for most impenetrable Upper Tribunal decision on FOIA. Now Judge Markus QC has had a go at squaring the circle in Lownie v Information Commissioner & Foreign and Commonwealth Office & The National Archives [2020] UKUT 32 (AAC).’
Panopticon, 19th March 2020
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Indecent images of children could not be used as evidence because they were in a police commissioner’s safe.’
BBC News, 12th March 2020
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
‘In this latest Environmental Law News Update, Christopher Badger considers a successful appeal for the disclosure of privileged instructions to Counsel under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, the adoption of legislative reforms on sustainable finance and investments by the European Council and Greenpeace claims that the UK will miss environmental targets for 2020 and beyond.’
Six Pump Court, 19th November 2019
Source: www.6pumpcourt.co.uk
‘Hundreds of police officers and staff have illicitly accessed police databases for their own ends including checking the criminal records of partners. Freedom of Information requests show 237 officers and staff have been disciplined for accessing the highly-sensitive police national computer or other IT systems in the past two years.’
Daily Telegraph, 7th November 2019
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
‘The First-tier Tribunal has ordered Ryedale District Council to disclose the briefing question it sent to a Queen’s Counsel seeking advice on a motion in which councillors sought for competing retail planning applications to be ‘called in’.’
Local Government Lawyer, 1st November 2019
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘A local resident who complained about the conduct of a councillor at Stratford-on-Avon District Council over a planning matter has secured a fresh hearing over the council’s refusal to disclose advice given by an independent person.’
Local Government Lawyer, 31st October 2019
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘For four years, Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has been fighting a FOIA battle for the release of correspondence held by the CPS concerning Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.’
Panopticon, 23rd October 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Counter-terror police across the UK have been running a secret database containing details of thousands of individuals referred to the government’s controversial anti-radicalisation Prevent programme, the Guardian can reveal.’
The Guardian, 6th October 2019
Source: www.theguardian.com
‘Alison Berridge, Alexandra Littlewood and Ciar McAndrew, public law barristers at Monckton Chambers, highlight the points of interest from April-June decisions of the First-Tier and Upper Tribunals.’
Monckton Chambers, 20th August 2019
Source: www.monckton.com
‘GMC apologises for “inadequate” checks after bogus doctor practised for 22 years.’
The Independent, 24th July 2019
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘The Home Office has been accused of covering up the plight of hundreds of modern slavery victims after it was forced to disclose data it previously claimed to have “no record” of.’
The Independent, 16th July 2019
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Local authorities are failing in their duty to prosecute rogue letting agents, the National Landlords Association has claimed after its research found that more than half of 20 councils did not prosecute a single letting agent in the four-year period from 2014/15 to 2017/18.’
Local Government Lawyer, 4th July 2019
Source: www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk
‘The background, as you may recall, is that Mr Kennedy, a Times journalist, was trying to get information out of the Charity Commission in connection with the ‘Mariam Appeal’, a fund set up by George Galloway MP for the purposes of supporting Iraqi children suffering from leukaemia. Mr Kennedy wanted to get hold of the information in connection with an investigation he was conducting into whether monies collected under the name of Mariam’s Appeal had been misused. Mr Kennedy made a FOIA request to the Charity Commission, which had conducted an investigation into Mariam’s Appeal. Mr Kennedy’s request was refused on the basis that the information requested fell within the scope of s. 32 FOIA (absolute exemption concerning court records).’
Panopticon, 18th March 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘We all love nuggets, be they of gold or chicken. A couple of short recent Upper Tribunal judgments reached under FOIA may not be finger-lickin’ good, but are nonetheless worthy noting as a tasty morsel or two.In Information Commissioner v Halpin [2019] UKUT 29 (AAC) Judge Markus QC overturned an FTT decision which had held that personal data was not exempt under section 40(2) FOIA. She explained that the FTT had erred in declining to have regard to the possibility of wider disclosure to the world beyond the requestor – because the public authority would no longer have any control over the information once released – such that it had failed properly to balance the competing interests and effects of disclosure. This was a point made in GR-N v Information Commissioner & NMC [2015] UKUT 449 (AAC) and applied since. The requestor’s private motives were sufficient to form a legitimate interest, but did not form a justification for disclosure to the world at large. The FTT had also erred in failing to address the core concern of the public authority, that disclosure would lead to inappropriate complaints against or other targeting of the particular data subjects causing them stress. It was no answer to that to say that the authority had procedures to address complaints: the point was not that the complaints would be upheld but that they would have to be dealt with when they would not have been without disclosure.’
Panopticon, 28th February 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Two recent decisions of the FTT on confidential information are of interest, one under FoIA, the other under the EIR, with a local authority being the public authority in both cases.’
Panopticon, 7th February 2019
Source: panopticonblog.com
‘Freedom of information (FOI) laws should be updated to account for the risks to transparency and accountability in the performance of public services where they are outsourced to businesses, the UK’s information commissioner has said.’
OUT-LAW.com, 1st February 2019
Source: www.out-law.com
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