Held on behalf
From FOIwiki
Information "held on behalf" of a public authority
Section 3(2)(b) of FOIA states "For the purposes of this Act, information is held by a public authority if ... it is held by another person on behalf of the authority" [1]
There is a relevant ICO guidance note [2] which gives the example of research material being held by another.
This ICO decision notice [3] is particularly relevant, where market research response data held by a private company was deemed to be held by the 3rd party on behalf of the public authority, and the Information Commissioner partly upheld the Section 3(2)(b) appeal.
There have been a few cases at the Information Tribunal where Section 3(2)(b) was considered:
- EA/2007/0091 Ms B Francis v IC (Additional Party: South Essex Partnership Foundation NHS Trust)
- EA/2006/0010 Peter Quinn v IC (Additional Party: Home Office)
- EA/2008/0089 Dr Nigel Dudley v IC (National Audit Office)
References
[1] FOIA 2000
[2] Awareness Guidance 12 - Information Caught by the FOI Act
