Information Commissioner's Office

Department of Health

25 July 2016, Central government

The complainant has requested information relating to any meetings between the former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health and Jeremy Hunt or senior civil servants about the report on doctors pay. The Department of Health identified a number of diary entries, narrative information and three notes of meetings which were relevant to the request but considered this information exempt on the basis of section 35(1)(a), 35(1)(d) and 40(2) where the information was the names of junior staff. The Commissioner’s decision is that the DoH has correctly applied section 35(1)(a) to withhold the three notes of meetings but that the public interest in the narrative of the meetings and the diary entries of the meetings favours disclosure. He also finds that the public interest in section 35(1)(d) favours disclosure in relation to this information. The Commissioner finds that section 40(2) does provide a basis for withholding some of the names from the narrative information and the diary entries.

FOI 35: Partly upheld FOI 40: Not upheld