Alan Dransfield's Blog

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http://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2013/11/26/knowing-what-to-overlook/

http://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2013/11/26/knowing-what-to-overlook/#comment-2841

27 October 2013 18.47Dear Mr Bailey

I would be most grateful if you would forward this email to the ICO complaints manager.

I am the complainant in this particular case and the decision notice of 3rd Oct 2013 which has been published on your website prior to notifying me. I have not received any notice from the ICO ref this decision. I now request the ICO to review your decision and to re-send this FN to me via post and mail please. The date on the letter will be the first applicable date for leave to appeal to the FTT. Please also be advised that I intend to appeal this decision to the FTT.

With thanks

Yours sincerely

Alan M Dransfield

http://www.ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/decisionnotices/2013/fs_50493287.ashx

Attn Mr Andrew White ICO Group Manager

Dear Mr White

Further to my email yesterday ref the ICO Decision Notice FS50493287 dated 3rd Oct 2013. Please treat this as an official FOIA request for information pertaining to the subject title.

1. Please provide the name and initial of the ICO caseworker responsible for this case.

2. Please provide copies of ALL letters,emails between the ICO Caseworker and the Stockport Borough Council Caseworker/Legal Rep.

3. Please provide copies of all telephone conversations,case notes etc between the case worker and the SBC.

4. Please provide copies of letters.emails sent from the ICO caseworker to Dransfield.

5. Please provide details of who conducted the Public Interest Test and when it was undertaken.

6. Please provide me with the Official letter and ICO decision via post and email because as of today, the ICO have failed to inform the Complainant, i.e Alan M Dransfield

This information and documents are required to assist me compile my application to the FTT.

With thanks

Yours sincerely

Alan M Dransfield

25 October 2013

Case Reference Numbers: IRQ0514834 and IRQ0515481
Dear Mr Dransfield

I am writing further to our recent acknowledgement of your requests for information, given under the separate references above. As you know, we are dealing with your requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). We are now in a position to provide our response.

On 30 September, you requested:

“Please provide me with specific details how many times the ICO have issued vexatious decisions which have been reliant upon GIA/3037/2011 Dransfield vICO”.
In a second email of the same date you also requested:

“all ICO decisions involving GIA/3037/2013 Dransfield v ICO”.

The requests are for essentially the same information, apart from the ‘GIA’ case reference. The case reference GIA/3037/2013 is not one we recognise. It is therefore understood that you are requesting to know how many decision notices the ICO has served which rely on the outcome of the Upper Tribunal case GIA/3037/2011 (Information Commissioner v Devon CC and Dransfield), and to receive copies of those decision notices.

This request was allocated our case reference IRQ0514834.

On 3 October, you requested:
“I make particular reference to the Contra Cabal URL website attached and the red highlighted section.
Please treat this as a request for a copy of Mr Smith’s reply”

This request was allocated our case reference IRQ0515481.

We are refusing these requests as vexatious under the provisions of section 14(1) of FOIA.

You refer to the findings of the Upper Tribunal in the case of Dransfield, which gives a definitive, and legally binding, interpretation of section 14(1) of FOIA. The Upper Tribunal’s decision on the application of section 14 of FOIA to vexatious requests is therefore not only significant, but also legally binding on the ICO.

We are aware that there is an outstanding application for permission to appeal the Upper Tribunal’s decision to the Court of Appeal. However, that application for permission has not yet been determined, far less has the Upper Tribunal’s decision been overturned. Therefore at present the Upper Tribunal’s decision remains binding authority.

Some findings from the Upper Tribunal (UT) are repeated below, because they are directly relevant to the present situation:

• “[…] the purpose of section 2 and Part II is to protect the information because of its inherent nature or quality. The purpose of section 14, on the other hand, must be to protect the resources (in the broadest sense of that word) of the public authority from being squandered on disproportionate use of FOIA” (paragraph 10);

• “[…] Thus an important aspect of the balancing exercise may involve consideration of whether or not there is an adequate or proper justification for the request” (paragraph 26);

• “for the reasons above I agree with the overall conclusion that the FTT in Lee reached, namely that “vexatious” connotes “manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of a formal procedure” (paragraph 27);

• “In this context it is important to bear in mind that the right to information under FOIA is a significant but not an overriding right in a modern democratic society. As has already been noted, it is a right that is qualified or circumscribed in various ways. Those restrictions reflect other countervailing public interests, including the importance of an efficient system of public administration. Thus section 14 serves the legitimate public interest in public authorities not being exposed to irresponsible use of FOIA, especially by repeat requesters whose inquiries may represent an undue and disproportionate burden on scarce public resources” (paragraph 35);

The UT also quotes a previous Upper Tribunal where it was stated that:

• “Inherent in the policy behind section 14(1) is the idea of proportionality. There must be an appropriate relationship between such matters as the information sought, the purpose of the request, and the time and other resources that would be needed to provide it.”

In the present circumstances, it is the ICO’s position that responding to your requests will require time and effort on the part of ICO staff which is not justified by the value to be derived from the information requested.

In the specific case of your 30 September request, the ICO publishes its decision notices (DNs) on the ICO website. These are easily searchable by a variety of means, including the ‘exemption’ under consideration. It would therefore be a straightforward matter for you to search for all DNs on the topic of section 14 of FOIA, which post-date the UT case GIA/3037/2011 and read the DN to see whether or to what extent that case was relied on. Therefore, there can be no justification for the ICO using its own staff and financial resources to undertake this task for you, hence the findings of the UT at paragraphs 26 and 35, reproduced above, are directly relevant.

For similar reasons, your 3 October request is also refused. In light of the legal status of the UT decision as binding on the ICO unless and until it is overturned by a superior court, then the assertions made on the ‘Contra Cabal’ website about the lawfulness of the ICO’s actions in following the UT decision are simply mistaken and based on a false premise. Engaging with this matter is therefore of no value and to do so would be to ‘squander’ the ICO’s resources (see UT paragraph 10, above).

In summary: we are satisfied that there is no value to you or any other party in any response the ICO could provide to your requests, which would justify the time and cost to the ICO of providing that response. For this reason, your requests are refused as vexatious under the provisions of section 14(1) of FOIA.

This concludes our response to your request.

If you are dissatisfied with the response you have received and wish to request a review of our decision or make a complaint about how your request has been handled you should write to the Information Governance Department at the address below or e-mail informationgovernance@ico.org.uk

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40 working days of receipt by you of this response. Any such request received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the Commissioner.

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint handler under the legislation. To make such an application, please write to the First Contact Team, at the address below or visit the ‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

A copy of our review procedure is available here.

Yours sincerely

Steven Dickinson Lead Information Governance Officer

http://contracabal.com/PDF/880-46-02-13-1020-turner.pdf

http://2040infolawblog.com/category/vexatious/

Letter sent 4th August 2013

Attn of the Board of Directors and the Non-Executive Board of Directors

Christopher Graham. Information Commissioner.
Simlon Entwiste
Daniel Bejamin
David Smith
Graham Smith
Andrew Hind
Neil Mason
Jane May
Enid Rowlands

Ladies and Gentlemen

FOIA IRREGULRITIES & ANOMALIES AT THE ICO

I wish to draw your attention to a serious matter which involves a small minority of people at the ICO who, in my opinion, are bringing the good name of the ICO into disrepute.

In particular, I refer to GIA/3037/2011 and EA 2010/0152 – the former is currently at Court of Appeal and the latter is at Upper Tribunal Appeal.

These are not isolated cases of ICO Shannagins and conspiracies.

There is prima facie evidence on the ICO records that ICO Officials have acted in bad faith with their actions and inactions.

Firstly, the ICO know or should have known that GIA/3037/2011 is still a live case before the Court of Appeal. Hence, they should not publish any documents or discuss this case in public. The ICO have failed on this Court requirement and hence are in contempt of Court.

I am aware of at least 3 occasions where my case has been discussed in public:-

The ICO vexatious 37 page guidance dated May 2013.

By the Deputy Commissioner Mr Graham Smith on TV.

By Lord McNally in the House of Lords.

There is also evidence that the ICO have spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers, money on GIA/3037/2011, which should have not been investigated by the ICO in the first place because it did not meet the ICO criteria for investigation, i.e. the PA did not own the subject title of the sought after information.

The ICO have consistently and wilfully breached their own Policy and Procedures for vexatious decisions……

There is also consistent evidence that ICO officials have wilfully breached section 77 of the FOIA 2000.

There is also evidence in the public domain that the Devon County Council have consistently and wilfully compromised the FOIA 2000 in relation to section 77 and evidence that the ICO have turned a blind eye. In particular, I ref to the whatdotheyknow website.

I fervently do believe that the ICO have “thrown the kitchen sink” at my FOIA GIA/3037/2011 with the sole intent to protect vexatious decisions handed down by rogue public authorities such as Devon County Council, Stockport Borough Council, Camarthen County Council and no doubt dozens of other rogue public authorities….

There is clear evidence that transparency, accountability and security (TAS) is NOT(repeat not) seen to be working at the ICO.

If my allegations are correct, of which I hold no doubt whatsoever, it would automatically follow that the ICO Board of Governors and the Non-Exeutive Board have failed their duty of care.

For you information, action and files

Yours sincerely

Alan M Dransfield