Commissioner rules hiding taxi details illegal
7 Oct 05
Parliament's security objections overridden in McLetchie information request
The Scottish Information Commissioner has overruled the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body's refusal to disclose Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie's taxi destinations to the Sunday Herald.
The SPCB had supplied the paper with Mr McLetchie's taxi receipts following a request under the Freedom of Information Act, but the destinations had been blacked out. The SPCB claimed that issues of personal security were involved.
However in a ruling today the Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, commented that he was not satisfied that the release of information would endanger Mr McLetchie in any way.
Mr Dunion said that his ruling related to the particular case, and that it was "entirely possible, and indeed likely, that if another request were to be made in relation to an MSP for whom the SPCB demonstrated a specific reason to believe that they would be put at risk", he would find the information should not be released.
Wider issues
A spokesman for the Parliament said that the SPCB would move quickly to process and release the information. However he commented: "As far as the Parliament is concerned, this matter raised wider issues than simply Mr McLetchie's taxi receipts. The primary concern was to balance personal safety against the legitimate public interest."
"It is entirely proper that the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body should raise and continue to raise concerns over the release of information when it relates to personal data and safety issues because of the very public role that MSPs serve.”
There have been a number of incidents since the Parliament was established of MSPs receiving personal threats. The spokesman said that the SPCB would continue to approach with caution and give careful consideration to all requests that may have personal data and safety issues, whether for members or their constituents.