Dear Jeni Tennison, 

NHS England has assessed your communication as a request under the Freedom
of Information (FOI) Act 2000. Your request is being dealt with under the
terms of the FOI Act and will be answered within twenty working days. Your
reference number is FOI-2409-2140307.

For further information regarding the FOI Act, please refer to the website
of the [1]Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). For further information
regarding NHS England, and the information we publish, please visit [2]our
website.

If you have any queries about this request or wish to contact us again,
please email [3][NHS England request email] and the message will be
forwarded appropriately. Please remember to quote the above reference
number in any future communications.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information

NHS England
PO Box 16738
REDDITCH
B97 9PT

Tel: 0300 311 22 33
Email: [4][NHS England request email] 

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Dear Jeni Tennison,

We refer to your email of 04 September 2024 in which you requested
information under the FOI Act from NHS England.
 
Your request

You made the following request:
Please could you provide, subject to any necessary redactions to omit
personal information which is not pertinent:
 

 1. The minutes of the Children and Young People’s Gender Dysphoria
Research Oversight Board (the Board) meeting held in July 2024, along
with any associated papers circulated for that meeting.
 2. The agenda of the September 2024 Board meeting, along with any
associated papers that have been circulated for that meeting.

Decision

NHS England holds the information you have requested but has decided to
withhold some information under section 40 and 41 of the FOI Act.

Section 40

Please note we are withholding the names of those involved in the
correspondence under the exemption at section 40(2) of the FOIA, which
relates to personal data of persons other than yourself (the requester).  
 
Section 40(2) of the FOIA provides that personal data relating to persons
other than the requester is exempt information if disclosure would breach
the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA). We consider that disclosure of this
information is likely to breach the first data protection principle in
Schedule 1 to the DPA, which relates to the fair and lawful processing of
personal data, in two ways. First, disclosure would not constitute ‘fair’
processing of the personal data and, second, disclosure would not satisfy
any of the conditions for data processing set out in Schedule 2 to the
DPA. Therefore, we have concluded that this information is exempt from
disclosure under section 40(2) of the FOIA.  

Section 41

It is our view that some of the information is exempt from disclosure
under the following exemptions: Section 41(1)(a) and (b) – Information
provided in confidence.  
 
Section 41(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act which provides that
information is exempt if it was obtained by the public authority from any
other person (or company, local authority or any other legal entity) and
disclosure of the information to the public by the public authority
holding it, would constitute a breach of confidence.  

The paper in question was provided by an external party and would be a
breach in confidence as it provides confidential details of the detailed
study application (which is what was covered in the paper) that is
currently going through academic peer review and NIHR funding committee
determination.  The funding determination process must be independent and
unfettered and is undertaken by technical experts and therefore should not
be released to the public domain.  If funded, the study protocol and
granting of a contract will then go into the public domain.
 
NHS England consider that the conditions above are met. The paper was sent
in confidence and is not to be released under Freedom of Information.
 
This is an absolute exemption and is not subject to the public interest
test. Therefore, under Section 41(1)(a) and (b) we will not be disclosing
the requested information. 
 
You can find out more about Section 41 by reading the guidance supplied by
the ICO on the following
link: [1]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

Please see redacted documents attached.

Copyright

NHS England operates under the terms of the Open Government Licence (OGL).
Terms and conditions can be found on the following link:

[2]http://www.england.nhs.uk/terms-and-cond...

Review rights

If you consider that your request for information has not been properly
handled or if you are otherwise dissatisfied with the outcome of your
request, you may seek an internal review within NHS England of the issue
or the decision. A senior member of NHS England’s staff, who has not
previously been involved with your request, will undertake that review.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of any internal review, you may
complain to the Information Commissioner for a decision on whether your
request for information has been dealt with in accordance with the FOI
Act.

A request for an internal review should be submitted in writing to [3][NHS
England request email]

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information
NHS England
 

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