Dear University of Cambridge,

Please supply, in electronic form, copies of all correspondence between the University and the Information Commissioner's Office regarding ICO Case Reference Number FS50307811. In addition, please supply copies of any other documents relating to this matter held by the University unless such documents are already publicly electronically accessible.

Please note that I am specifically requesting copies of the documents rather than the information contained within those documents. As you are no doubt aware, paragraph 6 of the Explanatory Notes of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) states "The Act will permit people to apply for
access to documents, or copies of documents, as well as to the information itself.". See:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/en/...

Note that the Information Commissioner has upheld this position, e.g. in paragraph 18 of the following Decision Notice:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/d...

You may also wish to take note of the following Ministry of Justice advice:

"if the requester asks for the information to be made available in a particular way, you must comply with this so far as is reasonably practical. ... Sometimes applicants will request information in a particular form, perhaps asking for a copy of the minutes of a particular meeting. If it is reasonable to comply with an applicant's request as to the form in which information is disclosed, you are obliged to comply with that request."

(See:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/foi-p...

.)

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

Dear FOI,

Thank you for your recent e-mail. You have said that some of the information I requested is exempt under sections 40(2) and 42 of the Act. You also appear to have redacted some information from the documents supplied by blacking out some of the text.

Please could you clarify whether the apparent redactions comprise all the exempt information, or whether there are entire documents which have not been supplied because they are exempt?

If there are entire documents which have not been supplied because they are exempt, please could you indicate how many such documents there were?

Also, if possible, please could you give summaries of these wholly exempt documents and make clear under which section(s) of the Act each document is exempt? If summaries of the contents of the document would be exempt under the Act, then I would accept a summary of the purpose of the document, e.g. if it were not possible to summarise legal advice given to the University in a way which was not exempt, I would accept a summary along the lines of "[Date of document] - legal advice about [issue]" (or simply "[Date of document] - legal advice" if even a summary of a few words of the issue on which legal advice was sought would be exempt under the Act).

Furthermore, with regard to the exemption claimed under section 42 of the Act, section 17(3) of the Act requires the University to state its reasons for claiming that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. Therefore, please state the reasons why, in all the circumstances of this case, the public interest in maintaining the Section 42 exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear University of Cambridge,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of University of Cambridge's handling of my FOI request 'Correspondence with ICO regarding FS50307811'.

In addition to the matter raised in the last paragraph of my e-mail of 4 August 2010, reproduced below:

"Furthermore, with regard to the exemption claimed under section 42 of the Act, section 17(3) of the Act requires the University to state its reasons for claiming that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. Therefore, please state the reasons why, in all the circumstances of this case, the public interest in maintaining the Section 42 exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information."

...I would also like the following matters concerning the University's handling of this FOI request to be considered:

* In its response dated 13 August 2010 [1], the University has refused to say how many documents it has withheld under Section 42 of the Act, nor has it given the dates of any of these documents. However, it has not cited any exemption under the Act for withholding this information. This appears to be in violation of Section 17 of the Act. I observe that if the University intends to withhold this information under Section 42 of the Act then not only should it have said so, but also, according to Section 17(3) of the Act, it should have explained why it believes the public interest in maintaining that exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the requested information. As the University has already disclosed the fact that the documents withheld under Section 42 "comprised communications for the purpose of seeking or giving legal advice relating to [my] complaint (ICO Case Reference Number FS50307811)", it is difficult to see why the number and dates of the withheld documents should be exempt under Section 42 of the Act.

* Would it be possible to give a more detailed summary of each of the withheld documents than "communications for the purpose of seeking or giving legal advice relating to [my] complaint (ICO Case Reference Number FS50307811)"? If not, why not?

Finally, note that since the University has not provided any reasons why the public interest in upholding the Section 42 exemption(s) outweighs the public interest in disclosing this information, I cannot tell whether or not I agree that the public interest lies in withholding the information. I therefore reserve the right to complain about the use of the Section 42 exemption when I have enough information to do so, or if and when this matter reaches the Information Commissioner's Office.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/co...

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

[1] http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/40...

Dear University of Cambridge,

On 17 September 2010 I received a response from the Administrative Secretary (dated 15 September 2010) regarding my request for an internal review, the relevant portions of which I reproduce below.

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

** Response from Administrative Secretary to my request for an internal review **

15 September 2010

Dear Mr Beckles,

Internal review of your requests FOI-2010-130, FOI-2010-131, F01-2010-134 and FOI-2010-135

I am responsible for reviewing, at your request, the University's response to your requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 ("the Act"), which have been allocated the references FOI-2010-130, FOI-2010-131, FOI-2010-134 and FOI-2010-135. My independent review is about whether the University's responses complied with its obligations under the Act.

I am sorry it has taken some time to complete these reviews. As you know, I have been away from Cambridge, and I also wished to deal with all four cases together.

FOI-2010-130: Legal Professional Privilege and Section 42 of the Act

I have consulted the Information Commissioner's Guidance Note about this exemption. I have considered also the explanation provided in Dr Allen's letter to you of 4 August 2010. You have asked for clarification as to why, in the circumstances of this case, the University is not prepared to disclose information to which a claim to legal professional privilege attaches.

In her letter Dr Allen adopted the reasons identified by the Information Commissioner as to why the University considers that the public interest in withholding privileged information outweighs any public interest in disclosure. As Dr Allen stated, the starting point is that legal advice and legally privileged information engages a "strong" public interest "inherent" in maintaining this exemption. This case is no exception.

Having reviewed the provision and reception of the privileged information and having seen the withheld information, I agree with Dr Allen's decision to withhold the legally privileged information. I believe that the exemption is properly engaged, because:

* the University sought legal advice in relation to its correspondence with the ICO, as disclosed to you on 4 August 2010. There is no basis to suggest (let alone any "sound evidence") that this matter involves any reasonable suspicion of illegality or misrepresentation, nor has there been a lack of transparency given the correspondence that has been disclosed to you on 4 August 2010;

* the University does, however, safeguard its ability to ensure in all communication between it and its legal advisers access to full and frank legal advice. Nothing in this case should override that and there is no equal or stronger countervailing consideration to override what the Information Tribunal has described as an "inbuilt public interest" in the exemption; and

* this is not a case concerning large amounts of public money, nor are significant groups of people affected by the legal advice in question.

Taking all of the above into account in the particular circumstances of this request, I uphold on review the University's reliance on Section 42 of the Act and I agree that, after assessing the various considerations, the public interest in favour of the exemption outweighs any public interest in disclosure.

Conclusion

Having completed my review across all of these requests, I have concluded that, save in respect of your complaint about format in respect of request FOI-2010-131, in each case the University has properly complied with its obligations under the Act and there is no further action to be taken, other than for the information requested by you under the latter request to be provided to you in your preferred format.

The Information Commissioner

If you remain dissatisfied with the University's handling of these requests or with the outcome of this review, you may raise the matter by way of appeal with the Information Commissioner, whose address is The Information Commissioner's office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. Tel: 0303 123 1113. Website: www.ico.gov.uk.

Yours sincerely