xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Our ref: DE00000302968
Dear Mr Mathers,
Thank you for your email of 22 April to the Department of Health requesting, under the Freedom of Information Act, information about meetings between the Department of Health and the Society of Homeopaths. Your email has been passed to me for reply and I apologise for the delay in doing so.
I can confirm that the Department holds no minutes of any meetings between Departmental officials and the Society of Homeopaths during the last two years. However, further investigations shows that there had been one informal meeting and that the Departmental official present made some handwritten notes on the agenda. Please find this attached.
I have removed the name of a junior policy official from the notes.
The Department considers that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 40 of the FOI Act. Section 40(3)(a)(i) applies to information whose disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in the Data Protection Act 1998 (or certain other provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998).
In applying this exemption, we have had to consider whether disclosure of the personal data in question would be 'fair' (as described in Part II of Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act). We have given particular consideration to the likely expectations of the data subject regarding the disclosure of the information. We have reached the conclusion that disclosure in this case would not be 'fair'. The exemption from the duty to disclose personal data where to do so would breach a data protection principle is an absolute exemption; the public interest test in section 2 of the FOI Act does not apply.
I would like to unreservedly apologise for any inconvenience caused by the information I gave you in my email of
The error occurred because I interpreted a statement from policy officials that there were no formal records of the meeting as meaning that no meeting had taken place. In light of your further email, I became aware that I had made an error and I asked
the policy official involved to search further. It was thus that the notes attached were located.
If you have any queries about this response, please contact me. Please remember to
quote the reference number above in any future communications.
I hope this reply is helpful. If you are unhappy with the way the Department of Health has handled your request you may ask for an internal review. You should write to the Section Head of the Freedom of Information group at the Department of Health, quoting the reference number above:
Freedom of Information Unit
Department of Health
Room 334b
Skipton House
SE1 6LH
Email:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxx.xxx.xx
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Department. The ICO can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely,
William Scott
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health