HOW BUSY IS THE TRIBUNAL?

Posted on | by Timothy Pitt-Payne KC

The First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) – as we must now learn to call it – has recently published on its website a list of its current cases (updated to 20th January 2010).  This gives an interesting insight into the volume and type of work reaching the Tribunal.

Cases are numbered by year of receipt, and in the order that they are received: for instance,  EA/2009/100 is the 100th case received in 2009.  This means that the case numbering system indicates how many appeals were received in a particular calendar year.  On this basis, the Tribunal seems to have received 123 cases in 2009, and 30 (so far) in 2010;  which suggests a sudden sharp increase in its workload.

The list shows 102 live cases.  Of these, only one is identified as a Data Protection Act case.  11 cases are identified as involving the Environmental Information Regulations.  All of the other appeals (90 cases) are brought solely under the Freedom of Information Act.

As the figures suggest, free-standing DPA cases before the Tribunal are rare.  There are also few DPA cases that reach the ordinary courts.  But many FOIA cases involve DPA issues.  So a significant volume of DPA case-law is being generated by the Tribunal; but most of this is in the context of FOIA, and in particular the data protection exemption in FOIA section 40. 

 

EMPLOYMENT VETTING IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

Posted on | by Timothy Pitt-Payne KC

Employment vetting is of great interest to information lawyers.  Any vetting scheme depends on the systematic sharing of information about individuals.  Such schemes will always give rise to difficult questions about fairness.  An important recent decision of the Court of Appeal explores some of these issues, in the context of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Governors of X School v Queen on the application of G [2010] EWCA 1 concerned a teaching assistant at X school (“the employee”), who was accused of having sexual contact with a 15 year old boy on work experience at the school.  The school governors conducted a disciplinary hearing, and dismissed the employee.  The employee brought judicial review proceedings to challenge the governors’ decisions not to allow him legal representation at the disciplinary hearing or at a forthcoming appeal hearing.  He argued that these decisions violated his right to a fair hearing, under article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).  The employee’s claim succeeded at first instance.  The Court of Appeal upheld that decision, rejecting the governors’ appeal.

The basis of the employee’s claim was that an adverse finding in the disciplinary proceedings would expose him to statutory procedures that would prevent him from working with children.  The Court of Appeal summarised the relevant procedures, by reference to three phases in the employment vetting regime:  (i) the “list 99” procedure, under section 142 of the Education Act 2002, prohibiting certain individuals from working in education; (ii) the transitional regime, under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 (“the 2006 Act”), whereby after 20th January 2009 certain cases under section 142 were referred to the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA); and (iii) the substantive regime under the 2006 Act, whereby list 99 was replaced with effect from 12th October 2009 by the “children’s barred list”, established under section 2(1)(a) of the 2006 Act.

The Court of Appeal considered whether the school disciplinary proceedings were a determinant of the employee’s civil right to practise his profession as a teaching assistant, so as to engage article 6 of the ECHR.  Dismissal by the governors would not itself preclude the employee from practising his profession.  A decision to include the employee on a statutory barring list would, however, have that effect.  The question was whether the disciplinary proceedings had a substantial influence or effect on the barring proceedings, and therefore on the determination of the employee’s civil right to practise his profession. The answer was yes: therefore, the disciplinary proceedings engaged article 6.

The Court went on to consider whether article 6 required that the employee should be entitled to legal representation in the disciplinary proceedings.  Article 6 did not entail a right to legal representation in every case:  but in this case there was such a right, given the seriousness of what was at stake for the employee, and given the potential for legal representation to make a difference to the outcome.

The above analysis assumed that the case was to be treated as civil rather than criminal for the purposes of article 6.  The employee argued that the case ought to be treated as criminal:  given its other conclusions, the Court of Appeal did not need to decide this point.

The governors were a public authority under the Human Rights Act 1998, and therefore subject to the duty under section 6(1) of that Act, not to act incompatibly with Convention rights.  The implications of the Court of Appeal’s decisions for private sector employers are uncertain.  Such employers are not subject to the section 6(1) duty, and are not susceptible to judicial review.  But in an unfair dismissal claim against a private sector employer, the employee might well rely on Governors of X School in order to argue that a failure to permit legal representation would render any dismissal unfair.

The case is of very considerable importance.  It illustrates the wide consequences of the vetting scheme introduced by the 2006 Act.  The scheme will give rise to a host of difficult legal issues:  the Courts are only just beginning to explore them.

EMPLOYMENT BLACKLISTING – AN UPDATE

Posted on | by Timothy Pitt-Payne KC

We have previously blogged about this subject at some length:  see in particular this post in November last year.

A draft statutory instrument, under section 3 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, is now available here on the OPSI website.  The draft regulations are intended outlaw the compilation, dissemination and use of blacklists of trade unionists in the employment context.

S. 41 FOIA: BREACH OF CONFIDENCE MUST BE “PROBABLE” RATHER THAN “ARGUABLE”

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

The Information Tribunal’s judgment in Higher Education Funding Council for England v Information Commissioner (EA/2009/0036) is its most definitive decision to date on the exemption for confidential information provided by s. 41 FOIA. Most decisions about s. 41 will – for now – need to take into account the issues addressed in this judgment.

 

The Council, a statutory body for the administration of higher education funding, relied on this exemption in refusing to disclose to a Guardian journalist information relating to the state of the buildings at Higher Education Institutions that contributed to the Council’s database. The Commissioner decided that s. 41 was not engaged. The Tribunal agreed, addressing a number of important issues along the way.

 

First, and most crucially: s. 41 is triggered by an “actionable” breach of confidence. Does “actionable” in this context denote a claim that is likely to succeed on the balance of probabilities (as the Commissioner contended, supported by Guardian News as an additional party) or merely a claim that is properly arguable (as the Council argued)? The Tribunal regarded this as a novel point on which the statutory wording was ambiguous. Accordingly, it turned to Hansard, which provided an unequivocal resolution: “actionable” for s. 41 purposes means (in the words of the bill’s sponsor, Lord Falconer) “being able to go to court and win”. For public authorities wishing to rely on s. 41, a merely arguable potential action will not suffice.

 

Next, the Tribunal considered the long-established definition of actionable breach of confidence from Coco v AN Clark (Engineers) Ltd [1968] FSR 415, the first limb of which requires that the information has the “necessary quality of confidence”. Guardian News conceded that the information was neither trivial nor widely accessible, but argued that limb 1 of Coco imposed two further requirements, namely: the party claiming confidentiality must demonstrate some value it would derive from non-disclosure of the disputed information, and the information must be confidential from the objective standpoint of the reasonable person. While it found that both of these conditions were met in this case, the Tribunal found it unnecessary to read these supplementary questions into the Coco test.

 

Third, the Tribunal considered the principle (under limb 3 of Coco) that a breach of confidence is only actionable if the confider suffers detriment thereby. Caselaw shows that, where private (as opposed to commercial) information is at stake, courts have not insisted on this detriment criterion. Nonetheless, the Tribunal declined to deviate from Coco: for s. 41 to be engaged, the public authority must make out detriment. The standard of detriment is not onerous: reputational damage suffices. In the circumstances, however, it was only the higher education institutions who were capable of suffering detriment, and not the Council in its own right, because the latter was merely the servant of the former.

 

Finally, the Tribunal, applying the proportionality test from HRH Prince of Wales v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 1776, held that a public interest defence would defeat a claim for breach of confidence in these circumstances. Notably, the Tribunal held that even if disclosure were to result in uncooperative behaviour from Higher Education Institutions, little weight should be attached to any such detriment based on obstructive behaviour “which would fall short of the standard of stewardship which the public is entitled to expect”.

NEW TRIBUNAL, SAME OLD WEBSITE

Posted on | by Timothy Pitt-Payne KC

The website for the new First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) is at the address formerly used by the Information Tribunal:  see here.

The website includes the Practice Statements that were issued under the old rules (i.e. the Information Tribunal (Enforcement Appeals) 2005), but as yet it does not include any practice directions made under the new rules.  We are however aware of a practice direction dated 18th January 2010 on confidentiality and redaction of documents (referred to in Anya’s post of 15th January).

The website also includes a redrafted version of the appeal form.

NEWS FLASH: INFORMATION TRIBUNAL RIP

Posted on | by Anya Proops KC

Today, we should all pause and reflect on the passing of the much loved Information Tribunal. With effect from this coming Monday (18 January 2010), the Information Tribunal in its existing incarnation will cease to exist and all work which has hitherto been done by the Tribunal will be transferred to the new General Regulatory Chamber. The transfer is to be effected in accordance with the Transfer of Functions Order 2010 (SI 2010/22) (“the Transfer Order”). It is important to be aware of the following systemic changes which will result from the transfer:

 

1.                   from 18 January 2010, all appeals under FOIA will be heard either in the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (“the FTT”) or in the Upper Tribunal (“UT”);

2.                   the question whether particular appeals are to be heard in the FTT or the UT is, in principle, to be determined by the new tribunal rules governing the operation of the FTT and the UT (see paragraph 2(3) of the Transfer Order);

3.                   there are in fact two sets of rules which are relevant in this context:

 (a) the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal)(General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009, SI 2009/1976 (“the FTT Rules”) (as amended very recently by the Tribunal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2010, SI 2010/43); and

(b) the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, SI 2968/2008 (“the UT Rules”) (as amended by SI 2009/274, SI 2009/1975 and SI 2010/43);

4.                   as matters currently stand, these Rules say very little as to how FOIA appeals are to be allocated as between the two different tribunals, save that all appeals under s. 60 FOIA (appeals against national security certificate) must be heard in the UT (see paragraph 24 of the Tribunal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2010, SI 2010/43). It is understood that, apart from appeals brought under s. 60 FOIA, the issue of allocation of appeals as between the two tribunals is likely to be determined on the basis of (forthcoming) practice directions rather than by reference to the Rules per se;

5.                   the FTT Rules and the UT Rules will apply in respect of all new appeals brought under FOIA (i.e. appeals which are commenced on or after 18 Janaury 2010);

6.                   in respect of appeals commenced prior to 18 January 2010, the tribunal will have a discretion as to whether to apply: (a) the old rules (i.e. the Information Tribunal (Enforcement Appeals) Rules 2005); (b) the new rules; or (c) a combination of the two sets of rules (see further paragraph 3 of schedule 5 to the Transfer Order which contains the relevant transitional provisions);

7.                   the FTT Rules and UT Rules will in due course be supplemented by practice directions – see further the new practice direction on confidentiality and redaction of documents (dated 18 January 2010).