Corporate Policy & Performance

Southampton City Council

Civic Centre

Southampton SO14 7LY

Direct dial: 023 8083 3050 Fax: 023 8083 3232

Email: [email address] Our ref:

Please ask for: Tracey Arrowsmith Minicom: 023 8083 2798

Date 7^th January 2010

Mr Stephen Nash

Request-23667-264b9757@wahtdotheyknow

Dear Mr Nash,

FOI request review - Outside legal advice

I write following my letter of 24^th December 2009. I have now completed my investigations in to the handling of your FOI request. I have set out my conclusions below.

The information you requested under the FOI Act:

1. For the last year the total amount spend on outside legal advice?

2. The name and address of those provided the advice and how much was paid to them and to which departments they were provided advice to?

I understand that point 1 has been fully complied with along with the majority of point 2, however, the Council decided that the information you requested relating to the names of those individuals that provided the advice is exempt from disclosure by virtue of the following FOI Act exemption:

S40(2): Personal Information

This section states that `information held by a public authority is exempt information if it constitutes personal data…and…the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene (i) any of the data protection principles…'

In your email of 22^nd December 2009 you have referred to the case of Durant v FSA. You have stated that in this decision the Court concluded that personal data is information that affects a person's privacy, whether in his personal or family life, business or professional capacity. You have stated that the outcome of the case means that identification alone no longer guarantees that data is personal.

When investigating your request, I have looked specifically at whether the names of the individual barristers in this instance constitute `personal data', taking in to account the Durant case and the guidance issued by the ICO following the case.

In paragraph 28 of Durant v FSA, a case considered by the European Court - Criminal Proceedings against Lindquist, is cited as an example. In this case it was held that, `personal data' covered the name of a person or identification of him by some other means, for instance by giving his telephone number or information regarding his working conditions or hobbies.

The guidance issued by the ICO states “It is more likely that an individual name will be `personal data' where the name appears together with other information about the named individual such as address, telephone number or information regarding hobbies”.

Had the individual names appeared in the response to your FOI request, they would have done so together with information about money that has been paid to them for their services. In line with the ICO guidance I believe that the names of individual in this instance do therefore constitute `personal data'.

The individual's names therefore constitute personal data of third parties within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998. The first data protection principle requires that personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully, and in particular shall not be processed unless at least one of the conditions in schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998 is met. The Council is satisfied that none of the conditions set out in schedule 2 would be met in this case and that it would and the Council is therefore prohibited from releasing such third party data.

I appreciate that the data concerns information of a professional nature, however, it must be taken in to account that none of the barristers' concerned expect this personal information to be released in to the public domain. A person's income relates to their private life as well as their work life and is more private than, for example, details of actions taken in a professional capacity. As barristers are not employees of the public authority and are in fact self-employed, there is a strongly reasonable expectation that personal information of this nature would not be publicly disclosed. This may obviously be a different argument for senior employees of the authority itself.

I do believe that it is in the public interest to understand how money is allocated to external legal advisors and for what purpose. I believe, however, that the information that has already been disclosed satisfies the legitimate public interest and it does not follow that it is in the public interest to link this information with individual names.

I must conclude therefore, that the Council is still unable to disclose this information as it is exempt by virtue of the following exemption:

Section 40 (2): Personal Information

I hope this clarifies our reasons for being unable to provide you with the information that you requested. In the event that you are dissatisfied with the way in which I have dealt with your complaint, your next recourse is to the Information Commissioner's Office, who can be contacted by way of letter addressed to:

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Or by telephone on 01625 545 700 or 08456 30 60 60

Yours sincerely

Tracey Arrowsmith

Corporate Complaints Officer

If you would like this letter sent to you in another format or language, please contact the number at the top of this letter

cc. Robert Pickering, Assistant Information Compliance Officer Southampton City Council

Richard Ivory, Assistant Solicitor to the Council