Mr Wilby Electronic Copy Only 13 January 2016 Our reference: FOW/1005731 Legal File reference: 00004737 Dear Mr Wilby Ref: Freedom of Information (Fol) request ~ request for copies of the invoices of solicitor firm Cohen and Cramer and retained counsel | write further to the above matter and in particular your email of 10 December 2015 which had as its subject “Invoices from Cohen Cramer, Matthew Richardson, Guy Wassell-Adams and Sara Mansoori" and in the body of the email made a Fol request for: “Please provide copies of al invoices received by the IPCC from the above named firm, or their retained counsel, within the period 1st January, 2014 up to and including 31st December, 2015.” The email went on to state that: “You have previously resisted a Fol request on this subject, from Nitin Shah, on grounds it is personal information. That is unsustainstable under the Act when the IPCC has applied huge sums of public money to a civil action that did not meet its objective.” Response to your Fol request | can confirm that the IPCC holds the information in relation to this request. Whilst your email does not confirm this, by reference to the Fol request by Mr Shah, we ‘assume that your request is related to the civil claim brought by three IPCC members of staff (referenced in the response letter to Mr Shah as [2014] EWHC 2404) (the Claim). Mr Shah's Fol request included the following question: 2) If the IPCC is funding the above (in any contexl), please state precisely what costs have been incurred and for what. Please also state who authorised such payments? ‘The IPCC response from Mr Hawkins, in a letter dated 13 February 2015, including the following response to this question:However, further information as to precisely what costs have been incurred and for what, is personal data of the employees. Therefore, | am refusing to disclose this under section 40(2) of the FOIA (personal data). In addition to the background in relation fo processing personal data of employees that hhas been oullined above in response to other questions, the detail of what precise costs, have been incurred and for what, relates to the employees and is personal and confidential, | find that none of these employees would reasonably expect the public to have access to such information (specific to their civil claim) and therefore, the processing of this personal information would be unfair. Furthermore, | find that none of the conditions under Schedule 2 of the DPA would be ‘met by compliance with this aspect of your request. Consent has not been obtained for the disclosure of any relevant information and | am under no obligation to obtain such consent.” For ease of reference and to provide context, | have enclosed a copy of the response to Mr Shah's Fol request with this letter. Personal data of the IPCC employees As information asset owner for IPCC Legal Services, | have considered your Fol request for copies of the invoices conceming the legal costs of the Claim, which in effect amounts to disclosure of the legal costs of bringing this Claim. 1 consider that the legal costs of bringing this Claim is the personal data of the Claimant employees and is confidential to them. tis information that relates to them and from which they can be identified. |\ have reviewed the ICO guidance conceming ‘Requests for personal data about public authority employees’ version 1.2 (the ICO Guidance). At Paragraph 11, it states as follows: “When a request is for personal data about an authority's employees other than the requester, itis exempt under section 40(2) and section 40(3)(a)() if t would contravene any of the data protection principles to disclose it. The principle that is most likely to be relevant is the first principle; the processing (in this case the disclosure) must be fair. If the disclosure would not be fair then it would contravene the first DPA principle and the information is exempt under FOIA section 40(2)...” Paragraph 12 states: “There are @ number of factors that could indicate whether disclosure would be fair, including whether it is sensitive personal data, the consequences of disclosure, the employees’ reasonable expectations and the balance between their rights and any legitimate public interest in disclosure.” in the context of this particular Claim (a claim for harassment), | do not consider that it would be fair to release this personal information concerning these employees. In assessing faimess, | parficulatly take into account that | do not consider that the‘employees have a reasonable expectation that this information would be disclosed further to a Fol request. | have taken account of ICO Guidance paragraphs 20-23, which concems balancing rights and freedoms with legitimate interests. Paragraph 20-22 state: ‘20. Even though disclosure may cause distress to the employees concemed, and they may have a reasonable expectation that the information will not be disclosed, this does not mean that disclosure would necessarily be unfair. The public authority must consider the legitimate public interest in disclosure and balance this against the rights of the employees. 21. The interest in disclosure must be a public interest, not the private interest of the individual requester. The requester's interests are only relevant in so far as they reflect a wider public interest. This is because, when information is disclosed under FOIA, it is effectively disclosed to the world at large, not only to the requester. 22, Under the DPA the exercise of balancing the rights and freedoms of the employees against the legitimate interest in disclosure is different to the public interest test that is required for the qualified exemptions listed in section 2(3) FOIA, In the public interest test, there is an assumption in favour of disclosure because the public authority must disclose the infomation unless the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure. In the case of section 40(2) the interaction with the DPA means the assumption is reversed; a justification is needed for disclosure.” In terms of the justification for disclosure, whilst | can see that itis relevant for the IPCC 1o be held to account for the way in which it spends public monies, | do not consider that the way this ocours is necessarily through answering Fol requests. For example, the IPCC is held to account for the way it spends public money through the Home Office, as the IPCC’s sponsor department. Furthermore, | consider that disclosure would cause an “unwarranted interference with the employees’ rights” (see paragraph 23 of ICO Guidance) and | consider that this interference outweighs any potential public interest justification in making the disclosure, Furthermore, | have also considered whether there is an applicable Schedule 2 condition under the DPA. I do not consider that any of the conditions apply such that | can satisfy Principle 1 of the DPA. | have considered condition 6 in particular. The ICO Guidance states at paragraph 29 that: "29, . This condition effectively creates a three-part test: ‘There must be a legitimate public interest in disclosing the information; The disclosure must be necessary to meet that public interest; and The disclosure must not cause unwarranted interference with the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of the employee. 30 Our view, as set out above, is that the public authority will already have considered the issues of legitimate interests in disclosure and unwarranted interference 5in the rights and freedoms of the empioyees as part of the general determination of feimess. Therofore, the question to answer in relation to Schedule 2 condition 6 is whether the disolosure is necessary to meet the legitimate interests. For example, could the legitimate interests be met by other means that interfere less with the employee's rights and freedoms? Is it necessary to provide all of the information requested? If not, full disclosure is not necessary, and the additional information is thereby exempt" To this end, whilst | consider that to provide you with the specific information concerning the legal costs of this particular claim, would be unfair and would interfere with the employees’ rights and freedoms, | have considered whether any information could be released which could meet the legitimate interests in making a disclosure that do not interfere with the employees’ rights and freedoms. To this end, | have provided below the agaregate legal costs of providing legal advice and representation to IPCC employees and Commissioners as individuals that relate to their job or role with the IPCC, for the financial years 2013/14; 2014/15 and 2015/16 (up unGil 31 December 2016). Year (financial Aggregate legal costs 2013/14 £14,701.20 20145 263,957.81 ae 2016/16 (to 31 December 2015) | £43,342.99 | i ‘ in my view, the provision of this information should satisfy any legitimate public interest in the disclosure of financial information of this nature, 'f you are not satisfied with this response you may request an independent internal review by our FOI appeals officer, who has had no involvement in dealing with your request. If you wish to complain about any aspect of this decision, please contact: Senior Reviewer Independent Police Complaints Commission 90 High Holo London WC1V 6BH Allemails requesting a review should be sent directly to: foi@ipoo.qsi.aov uk ‘Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner; however, | should point out that under section 50(2a) of the Freedom of Information Act, you are normally obliged to exhaust the IPCC’s own internal complaint mechanism before complaining to the Information Commissioner.Yours sincerely kon - David Emery Head of Legat Services For the Chief Executive Officer Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)