Council could “clearly improve” detail recorded

The Freedom of Information Act is not the easiest of Acts to find one’s way around but the Head of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer at the London Borough of Haringey is, surely, not a person who would have difficulty understanding the requirements.

The Information Commissioner backed the local authority’s to withhold a case review into the death of Peter Connelly (formerly known as Baby P) but was critical of the way it had handled the information request.

Without going into too much detail the criticism hinges on the reasons why the qualified person objectively and reasonably arrived at the decision to withhold information. These reasons were not recorded at the time and the Commissioner’s investigation had to rely on opinion put forward by the Council – which might have been different from that which the expert relied on at the time.

If you’re involved in any way with the FOIA then you may it useful to get the Commissioner’s guidance “section 36 – what should be recorded” (December 2009), which is available on the ICO’s website http://www.ico.gov.uk/

This case may also serve as a timely reminder that where a decision is reached it is important to record not only what the decision was but the arguments via which the decision was reached.

And this, of course, does not apply only in respect of Freedom of Information or Data Protection Acts, or the Environmental Information Regulations but also in any decision-making process in which we are involved with a third party.

Thanks to Freedom of Information from PDP Journals which I have just been reading in the British Library

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