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Document
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PO-1725
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File #
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PA-990117-1, PA-990118-1 and PA-990076-1
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Institution/HIC
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Cabinet Office
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: Cabinet Office received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for access to electronic and hardcopy versions of the "appointment book or books, or scheduling book" of a named employee of the Premier's Office, for the time period June 1995 to September 15, 1998. Cabinet Office is responsible for processing requests for access to records held by the Premier's Office. The requester then submitted the following second request to Cabinet Office: I understand from [Cabinet Office] that [the named employee's] scheduling diary (July 1995-December 1997) has been deleted from his computer ... I request that your office attempt to obtain the July 95-December 1997 scheduling diary from the government computer system. I believe you will find that either there is a system backup or that a secretary has a copy. Alternatively, I request that you search for paper records with a secretary or assistant to obtain a full or partial listing of 95-97 appointments. With respect to the first request, Cabinet Office stated that records for the period June 1995 up to and including September 9, 1997 do not exist. However, Cabinet Office located responsive records for the time period September 10, 1997 to September 15, 1998, and granted partial access to them. For those parts of the records to which access was denied, Cabinet Office claimed exemptions pursuant to sections 12, 18, 19 and 21 of the Act . With respect to the second request, Cabinet Office explained that records for the period September 10, 1997 to December 1997 had been dealt with in the first request, and added that it had attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate the computer system backup of records for July 1995 to September 9, 1997. Cabinet Office also stated that no assistant to the named employee had a separate electronic version of the appointment schedule because the employee had given his assistants proxy access to the same calendar management database. [A number of different calendar management databases were used by the Premier's Office during the time period covered by the requests. Unless a specific database is relevant to a particular topic under discussion in this order, I will simply refer to these various databases as a single "database".] The Cabinet Office also located three additional pages of records through a search of the files of the named employee's current and former secretaries, and provided the requester with partial access, claiming section 21 as the basis for denying access to the rest. With respect to both requests, Cabinet Office stated that some information contained in the records was being withheld because its disclosure might reveal personal information of third parties. Cabinet Office notified 58 individuals (the affected persons), pursuant to section 28 of the Act , seeking representations concerning the possible disclosure of the information relating to them. Following consideration of the submissions received from 31 of the affected persons, Cabinet Office granted access in full to the information relating to 18 affected persons, access in part to information relating to one affected person, and denied access in full to the remainder pursuant to section 21(1) of the Act . Cabinet Office also claimed that information contained in the records relating to activities conducted by the named employee in his personal capacity, and not as an employee, was not in the custody or under the control of the Premier's Office. One individual appealed Cabinet Office's decision to grant access to certain pages of records, claiming that disclosure would be an unjustified invasion of personal privacy pursuant to section 21(1) of the Act ; that the information on these pages was not in the custody or control of the Premier's Office; and that the request was frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of process (Appeal PA-990076-1). The requester appealed Cabinet Office's decisions regarding custody or control and the denial of access, and also claimed that records should exist with respect to the time period of June 1995 to September 9, 1997. Appeal PA-990117-1 was assigned to Cabinet Office's response to the first request, Appeal PA-990118-1 to the second. During mediation a number of events occurred: Cabinet Office confirmed that during the time period September 10, 1997 to July 9, 1998, the particular calendar management database used by the Premier's Office allowed users to colour code entries and to individually designate meaning to each of the colours. This software also produced a legend which shows the particular colours and their meanings. Cabinet Office confirmed that some of the records at issue in these appeals have colours attributed to them. Cabinet Office also retrieved the relevant legend. The requester indicated that he wished to pursue access to the coloured records and the legend which would identify the meaning of each of the colours. Cabinet Office also identified additional information relating to some of the appointments for the period September 10, 1997 to July 9, 1998. This information consists of supplementary or more in-depth details relating to some of the appointments. Cabinet Office agreed to provide the requester with an access decision covering the coloured records, the legend and the additional information referred to in the preceding two paragraphs. However, because no decision had been made by Cabinet Office prior to the end of mediation, the issue of whether Cabinet Office was in a "deemed refusal" situation by not providing the appellant with a decision letter with respect to these records was included as an issue in this inquiry. Cabinet Office claimed that an entry for October 24, 1997 is not responsive to the requests. The requester disagrees, so the question of whether this information is responsive is an issue in this inquiry. Cabinet Office produced a copy of the records retention schedule for the Premier's Office. As a result, the requester abandoned the claim that Cabinet Office's search for records was not reasonable. Cabinet Office clarified that before disclosing records to the requester, it identified one additional entry (Wednesday, November 26, 1997 for the time period 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm) that was being withheld for purposes of consistency. This page was added to the scope of Appeal PA-990076-1. The requester claimed that there is a compelling public interest in the disclosure of all records in the three appeals, pursuant to section 23 of the Act . The records which remain at issue in these appeals consist of 167 printed copies of the electronic appointment schedule of the named employee, in whole or in part. I sent a Notice of Inquiry to Cabinet Office, the requester, the 40 parties who were notified by Cabinet Office at the request stage and did not consent to disclosure of their personal information, and 12 other individuals identified in the records who had not been notified at the request stage but who I felt should also be provided with a copy of the Notice in order to have the opportunity to make representations. Representations were received from Cabinet Office and 12 other parties, but not from the requester. In its representations, Cabinet Office states that it is no longer relying on section 19 of the Act as an exemption claim. Because this is the only exempti
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Tom Mitchinson
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Published
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Nov 04, 1999
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Type
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Order
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