Mr John Gilchrist
Freedom of Information Officer
4 September 2019
The Burroughs
Hendon
Ref: FOI/August 2019/ Dominic Razenstein
London
NW4 4BT
By email to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 8411 4061
e-mail:
x.xxxxxxxxx@xxx.xx.xx
www.mdx.ac.uk
Dear Mr Razenstein
Your request for information received on 7 August 2019 has been dealt with under the provisions
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
You asked:
This request relates to students who enrolled in your LLB Law course (course code: M100) in
September or October 2017 and September or October 2018. I refer to these as the “relevant
students”.
I request the following data:
1. A complete, anonymised list of all GCSE and IGCSE grades achieved by the relevant students
who enrolled in each year; 2. A complete, anonymised list of all A-level grades achieved by the
relevant students who enrolled in each year; 3. A complete, anonymised list of all IB grades
achieved by the relevant students who enrolled in each year.
Notes:
A. Please provide the data for 2017 and 2018 separately.
B. Please do not include data from other law-related courses (such as Law with a Language, Joint
Honours Law, or Law with a Year Abroad) if these courses are offered by the university.
C. Please express your response in such a way that each row or bullet point represents a
separate, anonymous student.
D. Please provide the data under the following sub-headings, in the following order:
List of (I)GCSE grades for 2017
List of (I)GCSE grades for 2018
List of IB Scores for 2017
List of IB Scores for 2018
List of A-level grades for 2017
List of A-level grades for 2018
University Response
The information requested on costs is regarded as competitive data and is not available to our
competitors.
Section 44 (1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 permits the University to withhold
information if its disclosure would be prohibited by law. Due to competition law, under the
Competition Act 1998, the University must exercise caution in releasing any information of a
strategic nature such that it may constitute an exchange that would infringe competition law by
placing it in the public domain where it could potentially be access by other Higher Education
Institutions.
Competition law is seen to be infringed if parties do not actually agree on an anticompetitive act but
exchange information that would lead competitors to understand how and what benchmarks have
been set.
This would include the release of strategic, or strategically useful, information. It is therefore
necessary to withhold such information that is not already in the public domain and would include
specific information about the University’s admissions operations. Such information has therefore
been withheld because the University believes that its release would breach the Competition Act
1998.
By disclosing the information it would be placed in the public domain where it would be readily
accessible to other institutions in the Higher Education sector; thus it could adversely affect the
free competition between institutions.
This is an absolute exemption and the University is not required to consider the public interest in
the release of this data.
I trust this satisfies your request suf iciently. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, you have
the right to complain about the University’s response to your request for information. If you have
such a complaint, you may contact Mr David Maplas, Director of Student Affairs, Middlesex
University, Hendon campus, London NW4 4BT, tel: 020 8411 5830
, x.xxxxxx@xxx.xx.xx within
40 days of the date of this letter for a review of the University’s decision. If you remain unsatisfied
with the outcome of that complaint, you may seek further recourse by lodging an appeal with the
Information Commissioner.
Yours sincerely
John Gilchrist
Freedom of Information Officer
