UK Health Security Agency
By email
steve@ecoli-uk.com
Our ref: 03/10/24/JS/390
Dear Steve Nash,
13 December 2024
Re: Internal review of case refs: 01/07/24/JS/188 & 13/09/24/JS/353
I refer to your email of 3 October which is being treated as a request for an internal review of case references 13/09/24/JS/353 & 01/07/24/JS/188, in relation to your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please accept our apologies for the delay in issuing this response.
Your request rase ref: 01/07/24/JS/188
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) received your information request on 1 July 2024.
UKHSA’s Information Rights team sent you its response on 9 August 2024 and explained that your request of 1 July 2024 to the Information Rights team had been forwarded to UKHSA's Enquiries team who were co-ordinating the response. We also asked that any further queries you had about this request should be directed to: enquiries@ukhsa.gov.uk
UKHSA’s Enquiries team responded to you on 22 August 2024 and I have attached a copy of that response for your convenience.
Response case ref: 13/09/24/JS/353
The ICO wrote to UKHSA Information Rights team on 13 September 2024 (ICO Case Reference: IC-327033-H4W8) stating that it was the ICO’s view that the Enquiries team response of 22 August 2024 did not comply fully with FOI Act. The ICO asked the Information Rights team to issue a fresh response to this request, clearly stating the exemption the UKHSA intended to rely on, considering the public interest test, and providing an anticipated publication date.
UKHSA responded to you on 26 September 2024 (our ref: 13/09/24/JS/353, please see attached for convenience) explaining that in accordance with Section 1(1)(a) of the Act, UKHSA did hold the information you specified. However, this information was exempt under Section 22 of the Act, which states that public bodies are not obliged to disclose information that is intended for future publication.
We explained that the application of Section 22 does not require a set publication date to be in place.
UKHSA also considered the public interest test and concluded that the public interest in withholding this information outweighed the public interest in its release at the time of our response. UKHSA took the view that the public interest in the disclosure of this information would be satisfied by the publication of the outbreak investigation report in the near future.
Internal review decision
UKHSA has now conducted the internal review and concludes that UKHSA correctly applied exemption Section 22 of the Act to parts of your request.
However, UKHSA acknowledges it could have set out in more detail the information intended for future publication and the information not held by UKHSA in our response of 26 September 2024. We have therefore asked for and received the following clarification from the relevant UKHSA contributing team.
Please see below your request of 1 July 2024 and the contributing team’s clarification of parts 1-7.
The information requested in parts 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7 is held by UKHSA as the lead for the Incident Management Team and will be published in the outbreak report.
The information requested in part 2 will not explicitly be detailed in the outbreak report, as this report will only cover the outbreak investigated caused by a specific strain of STEC O157 defined by whole genome sequencing. We are not aware of any other STEC serogroups/strains linked to this outbreak in England.
The information in point 4 is not held by UKHSA.
UKHSA would like to apologise for the omission of this clarification in its response of 26 September 2024.
Please note that you have the right to an independent review by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if a query cannot be resolved through the UKHSA internal review procedure. The ICO can be contacted by calling the ICO’s helpline on 0303 123 1113, visiting the ICO’s website at www.ico.org.uk or writing to the ICO at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely, Information Rights Team
