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OSCR fights FOI request to release letters of complaints about charity

Governance | Vibeka Mair | 5 Oct 2011

OSCR has successfully challenged a Freedom of Information request from Dunnet Head Education Trust (DHET) to see letters from people complaining about its plans to reorganise the charity.

The case was revealed in OSCR’s annual report today.

Last year, OSCR received a request under the Freedom of Information Act from a trustee of DHET, who wished to see copies of 14 letters objecting to plans to reorganise the charity.

OSCR responded to the request exempting personal information about the objectors as it believed the public interest would not be served in releasing it.

The trustee of Dunnet Head Education Trust, wrote to OSCR again, requesting to see full copies of the letter. However, OSCR felt there was little additional information to reveal in the actual letters, other than the names of the individual objectors. The regulator advised the trustee to appeal the decision to the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner (OSIC).

In its submission to the OSIC, DHET emphasised that it considered the content of the complaints to be the issue, rather than the identity of the complainers. The content released by OSCR must be verified, it argued, and this could only be achieved satisfactorily by getting the original documentation.

In response, OSCR argued that when receiving evidence in respect of charities there was an expectation that information identifying individuals would not be disclosed to a third party.

OSIC sided with OSCR, finding that OSCR had provided DHET with a satisfactory summary of the letters, and agreeing it was not in the public interest to release the full letters.

At the time of the decision in the summer of this year, DHET was still subject to an open inquiry by OSCR.

Elsewhere, OSCR’s report also revealed a case in which a charity was asked by the regulator to provide a copy of its constitution and complaints procedure to a member of the public, who had been refused the documents by the charity.

OSCR felt the unnamed charity had declined the request based upon the person’s character and motives, rather than whether the request itself was reasonable.

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Directory: Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR)