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There
were 15 categoeis of exemptions contained in part
2 of the Open Government Code
They can be summarised in the following manner:
| Exemption
1 |
information
which would harm national security, defence or
international relations |
| Exemption
2 |
information
that would harm the frankness and candour of internal
discussion |
| Exemption
4 |
information
which would prejudice law enforcement and legal
proceedings or would harm public order or public
security |
| Exemption
7 |
information
which could harm the management of HSC/E or the
conduct of its operations |
| Exemption
8 |
personnel
records, public appointments, honours |
| Exemption
9 |
vexatious
requests, requests which are manifestly unreasonable
or formulated in too general a manner or would
require an unreasonable diversion of resources
|
| Exemption
10 |
information
about to be published |
| Exemption
11 |
incomplete
analysis, research or statistics or information
held only for the purpose of research and statistics
where the individual record will not be identified
|
| Exemption
12 |
information
that would cause an unwarranted invasion of personal
privacy (this exemption is now largely superseded
by protections in the Data Protection Act, see
GAP 37) |
| Exemption
13 |
commercially
confidential information |
| Exemption
14 |
Information
of a confidential nature |
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It
should be noted that where one of these exemptions
applied, there would be an overiding ‘public
interest’ test.
The code stated that:
"In
those categories which refer to harm or prejudice,
the presumption remains that information should
be disclosed unless the harm likely to arise from
disclosure would outweigh the public interest in
making the information available.
References to harm or prejudice include both actual
harm or prejudice and risk or reasonable expectation
of harm or prejudice. In such cases it should be
considered whether any harm or prejudice arising
from disclosure is outweighed by the public interest
in making information available."
This
would indicate that even when in the HSE’s view
‘significant harm’ might result, it may
still be disclosable - if disclsoure is judged to
be in the public interest.
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In
summary: |
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If
the information does not come within the categories
above, then the HSE should release them (even
if in their view it would cause significant harm). |
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If
the information does come within the categories
above, the HSE can only deny information, if disclosure
would cause ‘significant harm’ and
disclosure would not be in the 'public interest' |
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