Information Rights Tribunal Clarifies The Extent Of Its Role

Ian Hall v The Information Commissioner [2022] UKFTT 00461 (GRC)

Case background

The Appellant in this case runs a pro bono organisation that publishes information about conservation areas in the UK. The Appellant sent a request to Hertfordshire County Council asking for boundary information in relation to the conservation areas across Hertfordshire. The County Council refused to provide the Appellant with the requested information.

Over a number of months, the council sought to rely upon various provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000) and from the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). In April 2022, the council confirmed its final position. They sought to rely upon Regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIR, claiming that the data held in relation to eight of the ten districts were already present on Historic England’s website and therefore was easily accessible to the Appellant. In relation to the two remaining districts, the council relied upon Regulation 12(4)(d) of the EIR claiming that the requested information was still in the course of being completed.

The Appellant reported the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO issued a Decision Notice on 25 February 2022. Within this, the ICO concluded:

The ICO noted under a heading of “other matters” that the County Council was subject to the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 (RPSI) and that the Appellant would be entitled to make a fresh complaint to the ICO if the re-use conditions imposed were contrary to RPSI.

The Appellant appealed the decision notice on the following grounds:

In response to the appeal, the ICO submitted that the Tribunal had no jurisdiction in relation to RPSI as they had not issued a substantive decision and had only made an observation.

The decision

The Tribunal found that the information held by the County Council in relation to eight of the ten districts was publicly available and therefore easily accessible to the Appellant at the date of the request. The County Council was therefore exempt from disclosure in accordance with Regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIR.

The Tribunal upheld the ICO’s decision in relation to the additional two districts.

Whilst the ICO did not directly address the complaint in relation to the RPSI, they had used their discretion not to deal with this element of the complaint. The Tribunal, therefore, concluded that it did have jurisdiction to make a determination in relation to RPSI. The Tribunal concluded that supplying the dataset of conservation areas fell outside the public task of the County Council and therefore RPSI would not apply.

Comment

Within the appeal, the Appellant asked the Tribunal to consider the “broader context”. The Tribunal made it clear that its role is to decide whether a Decisions Notice issued by the ICO is in accordance with the law. The Tribunal emphasised that it is not their role to issue general guidance as requested by an Appellant.