UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JD
Ref. FOI/20180309/2
26 October 2018
Reply to request for information under Freedom of Information of Act
Your Ref
Your email of 9 March 2018
Address
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
_
Request
Please provide the percentage of offers made for undergraduate study to candidates
from (i) a maintained comprehensive school, (ii) a maintained grammar school, and (iii)
an independent school, in relation to:
(1) the university as a whole
(2) the course of History
(3) the course of History at each of the following colleges: Mansfield, Brasenose, Christ
Church, St John’s, Magdalen, Wadham.
(4) Each of the above, but in terms of History and Joint Schools.
Dear Mr Chen,
I write in reply to your email of 9 March requesting the above information.
Item 1
Please see the publicly available information online
here.
Items 2, 3 and 4
We have withheld a college breakdown and a breakdown by type of state school in order to reduce the risk of
individuals being identified, however we do publish information broken down by course and school type online
here. Please select the correct year from the dropdown list, select ‘Course’ from the ‘Select Demographic
(Rows)’ dropdown list, and select ‘School Type’ from the ‘Select Demographic (Columns)’ dropdown list.
In taking these measures, we are applying the exemption in section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA). Section 40(2) provides an exemption from disclosure for information that is the personal data of an
individual other than the requester, where disclosure would breach any of the data protection principles in
Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We consider that disclosure of the full information
requested would breach the first data protection principle, which requires that personal data is processed
fairly and lawfully. Disclosure would be unfair to the individuals concerned, as it would be contrary to their
reasonable and legitimate expectations. Providing the information in the requested format could allow others
with access to additional information to identify individual offer-holders and infer new information about their
educational and socio-economic background. These individuals would not reasonably expect this information
to be made public under the FOIA without their consent. Please note that a disclosure of information under
2
FOIA is presumed to be a disclosure to the world at large, and not just a disclosure to the individual making
the request.
For the disclosure of personal data to be lawful, it must have a lawful basis under Article 6 of the GDPR. There
are six possible lawful bases in Article 6; we do not consider that any of them would be satisfied in respect of
the disclosure.
The exemption in section 40(2) is an absolute exemption and is not subject to the public interest test provided
for in section 2(2)(b) of the FOIA. To the extent that the public interest is relevant in this case, the University
has taken it into account.
INTERNAL REVIEW
If you are dissatisfied with this reply, you may ask the University to review it, by writing to the Head of
Information Compliance at the following address:
University Offices
Wellington Square
Oxford
OX1 2JD
Alternatively, you may request a review by e-mailin
g xxx@xxxxx.xx.xx.xx THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER
If, after the internal review, you are still dissatisfied, you have the right under FOIA to apply to the Information
Commissioner for a decision as to whether your request have been dealt with in accordance with the FOIA. The
Information Commissioner’s address is:
Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123113
Further information for submitting complaints to the Information Commissioner is available at
http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx Yours sincerely,
FOI OXFORD