Health Committee Correspondence

Our Ref: FOI 54-21

14 February 2022

Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”)

I am writing to confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission (Assembly Commission) has processed your request dated 17 November 2021 in line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000). In your request, you asked:

“I would like to submit the below as an FOI.

1. (a) We would like to request a copy of all correspondence including briefing papers etc between the Health Committee and GMC/DoH/Health Minister/RQIA/Inquiry Panel/Any other stakeholder.

(b)We respectfully request we are included in any further correspondence moving forward.

2. On 04th August 2021, we submitted concerns regarding the Independent Neurology Inquiry.

(a) What action was taken?

(b) Please provide a copy of all documentation, including correspondence.”

 

Please see the list below of documentation that is relevant to your request. The documents can be found in the Appendix A and separate Appendix B. With regards to being kept informed in further correspondence, the Committee intends to publish relevant papers relating to this matter on the Assembly website.

Following receipt of your letter dated 4^th August 2021, the Committee agreed to note your response.

The Assembly Commission has considered the documents outlined in Appendix B to determine if the application of exemptions is appropriate under the FOIA 2000 and associated legislation. Where information has been redacted, the relevant exemption has been noted in the table found in Appendix A.

The application of these exemptions has been outlined below:

S.21 Information accessible to applicant by other means

The Assembly Commission considers this information to be exempt from disclosure under Section 21 of the FOIA 2000. Section 21 provides that information is exempt from disclosure under the FOIA 2000 if it is accessible to the applicant by other means, as outlined in the FOIA 2000: 

(1)  Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.

(2)  For the purposes of subsection (1)—

(a)  information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and

(b)  information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.

Where this exemption has been applied, the Assembly Commission has endeavoured to provide assistance by inserting links to the documents listed in Appendix A.

S.40 Personal information

Some of the information which you have requested relates to personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This information which you requested is personal data because it is information relating to one or more identifiable living individuals.

The Assembly Commission considers this information to be exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) (Personal Information) of the FOIA 2000, whereby personal data is exempt from disclosure in certain circumstances.

Section 40(2) of the FOIA 2000 provides that any information is exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject and satisfies one of the three conditions.

The Assembly Commission is satisfied that one such condition is satisfied.  It is not therefore necessary to consider the other potentially applicable conditions.  The relevant condition is set out at section 40(3A) of the FOIA, and is that:

“… disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act—

(a) would contravene any of the data protection principles…”

The information requested can therefore be disclosed only if to do so would not contravene “any of the data protection principles”.

In addition, disclosure of this personal information would be considered a breach of the DPA 2018, Schedule 2, Part 3, Paragraph 16 - Protection of the Rights of Others.

Under Schedule 2, Part 3 Paragraph 16 of the DPA 2018, third party personal data must not be disclosed unless we have the consent of the third party to do so.

Protection of the rights of others: general

16 (1) Article 15(1) to (3) of the UK GDPR (confirmation of processing, access to data and safeguards for third country transfers), and Article 5 of the UK GDPR so far as its provisions correspond to the rights and obligations provided for in Article 15(1) to (3), do not oblige a controller to disclose information to the data subject to the extent that doing so would involve disclosing information relating to another individual who can be identified from the information.

(2) Sub-paragraph (1) does not remove the controller’s obligation where -

(a) the other individual has consented to the disclosure of the information to the data subject, or

(b) it is reasonable to disclose the information to the data subject without the consent of the other individual.

S41 Information provided in confidence

The Assembly Commission considers that some of the information relevant to your request is exempt from disclosure under Section 41. Section 41 of the FOIA 2000 provides that information provided in confidence is exempt from disclosure:

(1)  Information is exempt information if—

(a)  it was obtained by the public authority from any other person (including another public authority), and

(b)  the disclosure of the information to the public (otherwise than under this Act) by the public authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other person.

(2)  The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act) constitute an actionable breach of confidence.

You have the right to request a formal review by the Assembly Commission and if you wish to do so, please write to me at the above address.

If after such an internal review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF who will undertake an independent review.

The Assembly Commission may publish details of your FOI request and our official response within the organisational disclosure log. The request will be completely anonymised and you will not be identified in any way. This is to meet the requirements as laid out by in the agreed publication scheme with the Information Commissioners’ Office.

Yours sincerely

INFORMATION STANDARDS

 

Appendix A