Freedom of Information Tribunal Update

Post date: Oct 2, 2016 8:34:40 PM

A Tribunal is hearing Gloucestershire County Council’s appeal against the Information Commissioner’s (ICO) decision that GCC should release the unredacted business case and contract for the Javelin Park mass burn incinerator, as requested by Glosvain’s Cos Ttofa.

GCC and Urbaser Balfour Beatty were both represented by the same barrister.

Cos was represented in London by our chair Gerald Hartley for the 3 days 27-29/09.

We are grateful to County Councillor Sarah Lunnon for attending on Thursday as a witness.

We were, of course, excluded from any of the sessions where the ‘secret data’ was being considered. It was a public hearing, so nothing said in open court is secret. However, with closing submissions still to be made, we are not minded to report or comment at this time on any contributions made by any of the parties to the Tribunal, or to speculate on the outcome.

To further inform the Tribunal’s deliberations, the judge requested that the ICO’s closing statement be submitted in writing in 2 weeks, with ours in the 2 weeks following that and GCC/UBB the 2 weeks after that. So there will be no decision until some time after November 4th and all the parties were asked to reserve December 5th for a possible recall.