Mr Jamie Hepburn MSP (Mr Hepburn) requested from North Lanarkshire Council (the Council) the numbers of correspondence items received from individual MSPs, MPs and MEPs over a specified period of time. The Council withheld the information under the exemption in section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), which allows public authorities to withhold personal data if the disclosure of the information would breach any of the data protection principles contained in the Data Protection Act 1998 (the DPA). Following a review, Mr Hepburn remained dissatisfied and applied to the Commissioner for a decision.
Following an investigation, the Commissioner found that the Council had failed to deal with Mr Hepburn’s request for information in accordance with Part 1 of FOISA, by wrongly withholding the information under section 38(1)(b). He required the Council to provide Mr Hepburn with the information he had requested.
[2009] ScotIC 082 – 2009
Bailii
Scotland
Information
Updated: 22 November 2021; Ref: scu.434031