24 September 2009

Mr J Martin

By email only: [FOI #18045 email]

Our ref: PW

(Please quote our reference when contacting us and, if using email,

please put the reference number in the email subject header)

If telephoning please contact: Peter Whiteley on 020 7217 4628

email address: [email address]

Dear Mr Martin

Request for information

I refer to your recent request for information concerning a complaint by a governor from Overton Grange Community School.

The information you have requested concerns the contents of a complaints file. Although the public do have rights to see information held by public bodies under the Freedom of Information Act, this Act (section 44) does not override any restriction on the release of information covered by an earlier law.

Such a restriction applies to the Ombudsman's complaint files. Under the Local Government Act 1974 (section 32(2)), the Ombudsman is not permitted to disclose any information obtained in the course of, or for the purposes of, the investigation of a complaint, unless he or she considers it is necessary for the purposes of the investigation (or for other very limited reasons mostly related to legal proceedings).

The Ombudsman has asked me to consider whether to release to you the file information you have requested, on the basis that it would assist the investigation. I have considered your request and I have decided that it would not be appropriate to release this information to you. The complaint has been closed. It cannot assist an investigation to disclose this information to you if the investigation is no longer being pursued. Even if the complaint were still ongoing, since you were not involved it is unlikely there could be any reason to disclose it to you for the purposes of the investigation. Accordingly, the restriction in section 32(2) prevents me from disclosing this information to you.

/…

Page 2

You have the right to appeal against the way we have dealt with your request so I enclose a copy of our internal complaints procedure. You can also ask the Information Commissioner to ensure that we have responded properly to your request. You do, however, need to go through our internal complaints process first. You will be able to obtain further details of the Information Commissioner's role from the website on www.ico.gov.uk.

We will dispose of the file on this complaint according to our normal disposal policy. We are due to dispose of this file in July 2010. If you decide to appeal to the Information Commissioner about your information request, please let us know. We will then keep the file until the Information Commissioner has concluded his investigation of your case.

Yours sincerely

Peter Whiteley

Assistant Ombudsman

Enc: details of internal complaints procedure

LGO 01 (03/08)