Postman Pat…hetic

Pat waves goodbye to common sense

One of the things I like doing with FoI is following in the footsteps of other requesters. I’m not ashamed of pinching somebody else’s good idea.

To that end I’ll read the Decision Notices and Tribunal judgements. When there has been an order to disclose documents and I think they might be interesting I’ll ask for a copy of everything that was disclosed to the original applicant. On occasions it has yielded some great information without me having to be the one who has to prepare all the appeal documents.

However, the Royal Mail are taking a stubbornly unique approach to the Freedom of Information Act in a case where I want data it has already been ordered to disclose.

Way back the Royal Mail was ordered by the Information Commissioner to reveal how much it had paid to management consultants in 04/05, 05/06 and 06/07. The decision notice [here] ruled the information was not covered by S.43 (Commercial Interests).

The case initially went to the Tribunal but appears to have been settled before the case was ruled on by the panel. However, what is not in dispute is that following the intervention of the Commissioner the management consultancy fees were disclosed.

So I thought I’d ask for the figures that had been disclosed and bring the issue right up to date by asking for the 07/08 and 08/09 figures.

Imagine my surprise when the Royal Mail refused to release the information! They claim that it would be too expensive and breaches the £450 limit to amass the data for the two most recent years – despite being able to do it for the three older years. It also claims that the information about those three years, where the information was disclosed to the applicant, cannot now be released to me (is it because I’m a journalist?) because it is exempt under S.43.

This is what they say: “Royal Mail Group holds the total amount spent on strategic management consultants in 2004/5, 2005/6, and 2006/7. Information for these years is held because it has previously been collated by Royal Mail Group.

“As you are aware, this information was previously the subject of an ICO Decision Notice - FS50178376. The information held therefore covers the strategic management consultants as defined in that case.

“Although this information was released to the applicant in case reference FS50178376, we still believe that disclosure of the information at this time would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Royal Mail Group.”

There was me thinking one of the main limbs of the Freedom of Information Act was that disclosure to one person was disclosure to the world.

Anyhow, you may not be surprised to learn that my appeal to the Information Commissioner is winging its way through the post – recorded delivery.

The refusal of my internal appeal can be seen here [Appeal refusal]. If anybody has any thoughts on this case I’d be pleased to hear them. Is there something I’m missing in my understanding here, or do Royal Mail think they can make the rules up as they go along?