Dear Grammar Schools Heads Association,

Please can you send me:

- Your financial statements/summaries for each of the last three years.

- A list of a) all donors to your organisation (whether the donation is monetary or in-kind) with details of the donation for each, and b) all fee-paying members of your organisation.

Please can you clarify that fees paid to GSHA are paid from each individual grammar school's budget, not by individual headteachers in a personal capacity.

I understand that GSHA believes it is not subject to FOI. However, GSHA appears to fall squarely under the definitions of publicly-owned companies' provided in section 6 (1)(b) and (2)(b)(ii) of the FOI Act. In addition, the purpose and work of GSHA as described on your website, gives it the character of a public body.

Further, given that your funding comes from taxpayers via school budgets and in the certainty that you support transparency and accountability, it is difficult to see why you would object to providing this information.

Yours faithfully,
Rebecca Hickman

Dear James Skinner,

Many thanks for your response. I am writing to request an internal review.

I'm not sure I follow your interpretation of the FOI Act and would be grateful if you could point me to the section that says that organisations are only a public authority if they are listed in Schedule 1?

You may be aware that Section 3 of the Act states as follows:
Public authorities.
(1)In this Act “public authority” means—
(a)subject to section 4(4), any body which, any other person who, or the holder of any office which—
(i)is listed in Schedule 1, or
(ii)is designated by order under section 5, or
(b)a publicly-owned company as defined by section 6.

In turn Section 6 states:
Publicly-owned companies.
(1)A company is a “publicly-owned company” for the purposes of section 3(1)(b) if—
(a)it is wholly owned by the Crown,
(b)it is wholly owned by the wider public sector or
(c)it is wholly owned by the Crown and the wider public sector.
(2)For the purposes of this section—
(a)a company is wholly owned by the Crown if, and only if, every member is a person falling within sub-paragraph (i) or (ii)—
(i)a Minister of the Crown, government department or company wholly owned by the Crown, or
(ii)a person acting on behalf of a Minister of the Crown, government department or company wholly owned by the Crown,
(b)a company is wholly owned by the wider public sector if, and only if, every member is a person falling within sub-paragraph (i) or (ii)—
(i)a relevant public authority or a company wholly owned by the wider public sector, or
(ii)a person acting on behalf of a relevant public authority or of a company wholly owned by the wider public sector, and
(c)a company is wholly owned by the Crown and the wider public sector if, and only if, condition A, B or C is met.

So GSHA would be covered by the intersection of Section 3(1)(b) and Section 6(2)(b).

You may be aware that The Buckinghamshire Grammar Schools (non-profit company) are not covered by Schedule 1 of the Act, but have been found to be covered by the Act by the Information Commissioner 's Office.

I would also repeat the point that GSHA should surely be prepared to be transparent about the the spending of its funds given that a significant proportion of those funds come directly from the taxpayer via school budgets.

Yours sincerely,

Rebecca Hickman