Information Commissioner's Office

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

9 January 2007, Local government (Borough council)

The complainant requested a copy of the “James Report” from the public authority. This report was the result of an investigation into recruitments made in the Community Regeneration Department there. The public authority provided the complainant with a redacted version of the report, citing the exemptions at sections 40(2) and 41 of the Freedom of Information Act. These exemptions were applied in respect of names of individuals, as well as job titles from which individuals could be identified. The people involved were a mixture of those who were the subject of the report and individuals who had provided information to substantiate the report. As the complainant expressly did not require the latter, the exemption at section 41 was not given further consideration. The Commissioner does not uphold the complaint in respect of section 40(2). It was decided that that information requested does constitute personal data and this exemption was correctly applied.

FOI 40: Not upheld