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Claims of defamation in BDO Stoy Hayward report on audit of student records for HEFCE
Bruce Beckles made this Freedom of Information request to London Metropolitan University
The request was successful.
From: Bruce Beckles
10 October 2009
Dear Sir or Madam,
In response to a freedom of information request HEFCE have informed
me that "London Metropolitan University and/or certain of its
governors/senior staff have advised that they consider part of [the
final report by BDO Stoy Hayward LLP for HEFCE on BDO's independent
audit of student records at London Metropolitan University] to be
defamatory and have indicated that they would be prepared to seek
legal redress" and that I might wish to consider this should I wish
to make any version of this report more widely available.
HEFCE also suggested that "the University would be willing to
provide [me] with the details of their allegations for [my]
consideration". Therefore, under the Freedom of Information Act
(2000), please would you supply me with:
(a) the details of the allegations in regard to any defamatory
material contained within the BDO Stoy Hayward report mentioned
above; and
(b) details of any other objections the University might have to a
redacted version (such redactions being of any personal data
protected under the DPA and/or FOIA exemptions) of the BDO Stoy
Hayward report being made publicly available?
Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
Bruce Beckles
From: Bruce Beckles
7 November 2009
Dear Sir or Madam,
The Freedom of Information Act (2000) requires you to respond to
any Freedom of Information request promptly, and in any event, no
later than 20 working days after the request. You have failed to
give any response to my request - for instance explaining why it
would take you longer than 20 working days to process it - and, as
20 working days have now passed, I therefore believe that you are
breaking the law.
If I do not receive a response from you within the next 5 working
days then I will have no choice but to complain to the Information
Commissioner.
Yours faithfully,
Bruce Beckles
From: Bruce Beckles
9 November 2009
Dear Mr McParland,
Thank you very much for your response. However, it appears that the
third document, the letter from the University's solicitors (LON
LIB1.pdf), was damaged in transit and I am unable to open it.
Please will you re-send this document?
(In light of the fact that your response to my request was already
overdue, please re-send this document as soon as possible.)
Yours sincerely,
Bruce Beckles
Richard Taylor left an annotation (23 November 2009)
WhatDoTheyKnow has removed the substantive responses from this correspondence thread as we were alerted to the fact they contained material some consider defamatory.
The responses quoted extensively from the audit report about which HEFCE have said: "London Metropolitan University and/or certain of its governors/senior staff have advised that they consider part of this report to be defamatory and have indicated that they would be prepared to seek legal redress."
A response from HEFCE to a similar request asking for precise details of the material in the audit report which is considered defamatory also contained potentially defamatory material, and has not enabled us to redact particular elements of the report before republishing it:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/li...
WhatDoTheyKnow only removes material from the site in exceptional circumstances, generally only when we are required to by law. We took legal advice on this matter and having considered our position have decided that we are not prepared to take what we have been advised is a very high level of risk involved in republishing it.
We have however been advised that we are able to pass the documents on to journalists.
[Note: The date of this annotation does not reflect the date at which the material was removed as our first step was to hide the entire thread. In the interests of transparency we have now republished the request and initial response.]
--
Richard - WhatDoTheyKnow.com volunteer
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- Download a zip file of all correspondence
Mark Oxley left an annotation ( 9 November 2009)
Could the file be checked and uploaded again please?
Link to this