Edinburgh infirmary PFI contract must be disclosed
24 Oct 07
Information Commissioner rejects claim of confidentiality for lack of support
The contract covering the provision of building, maintenance and support services for the new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh must be disclosed under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion has ruled in a decision released today.
Mr Dunion rejected the claim by NHS Lothian that the whole PFI contract, with Consort Healthcare, was confidential. His decision also highlighted shortcomings in the way in which NHS Lothian responded to the initial freedom of information request and his subsequent investigation.
The freedom of information request was made in January 2005 by Ms May Docherty, who asked NHS Lothian for a copy of the PFI contract signed between the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh NHS Trust and Consort.
NHS Lothian refused on the basis of the confidentiality exemption in section 36(2) of the Act. When Ms Docherty appealed, the health authority, instead of offering a justification for claiming the exemption, presented documentation which provided Consort’s view that release of the information would be an actionable breach of confidence.
Mr Dunion reports that he made repeated attempts - including two legally enforceable information notices - to compel NHS Lothian to identify the specific information within the 2,400 pages of information and 27 associated schedules it considered to be exempt, and for its own submission on the application of the exemption. During his investigation, NHS Lothian discovered some 5,000 further pages of information that had been overlooked, but which fell into the scope of the information request.
In his decision the Commissioner found that NHS Lothian had failed to provide justification for withholding all of this information as confidential; failed to provide arguments for withholding any specific portions of the contract as confidential; and incorrectly claimed that the cost of providing the information would be excessive.
Mr Dunion said: “It is the responsibility of NHS Lothian to provide detailed justification for withholding the information requested. In this case it sought to claim that a blanket exemption of confidentiality covered every one of the thousands of pages of this detailed contract. However, other than broadly indicating why Consort Healthcare did not wish the information disclosed, NHS Lothian provided me with virtually no arguments to justify withholding the contract. As a consequence I have ordered that the contract must be disclosed.”
The full text of the decision is published on the Commissioner’s website at www.itspublicknowledge.info .