Prakash Puchooa v The Information Commissioner
[2023] UKFTT 640 (GRC)
Janna Linde v The Information Commissioner & Anor
10 August 2023
[2023] UKFTT 668 (GRC)
First-tier Tribunal
Someone asked the council for interview notes. The council said they'd thrown them away. A judge agreed with the council, and the case was closed because there was no evidence the notes still existed.
Key Facts
- •Janna Linde appealed a decision notice (DN) from the Information Commissioner regarding a Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) request to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
- •Linde requested interview notes from successful and unsuccessful applicants for a social worker role, along with details of their ethnicity, nationality, age, disability, and the model answers and scoring plan used.
- •The Council stated the information was disposed of after 6 months, as per their policy.
- •The Commissioner's decision was that, on the balance of probabilities, the Council did not hold the requested information.
- •Linde appealed, arguing that the Council’s policy is to retain such information and that some had already been provided, indicating that not all information had been destroyed.
- •The Council provided witness statements supporting their claim that the information was no longer held and that their policy is only a guideline and was not followed in this instance.
Legal Principles
The scope of the Information Commissioner's investigation is to establish whether a public authority holds information, not whether it should hold it.
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Tribunal's role is to determine, on the balance of probabilities, whether the public authority holds the requested information.
Case Law (implied)
The Tribunal can accept the word of the public authority regarding whether information is held.
Case Law (implied and referenced by the Commissioner)
Outcomes
The appeal was struck out.
The Tribunal found no error of law or flaw in the Commissioner's decision, concluding that the evidence indicated the requested information was not held by the Council on the balance of probabilities. The appellant's arguments were based on what information should be held rather than what information was actually held.