Scranage v Information Commissioner
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Judge Wikeley |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] UKUT 196 (AAC) |
| Court | Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber) |
| Subject Matter | Information rights,Information rights - Data protection,Information rights - Information rights: practice,procedure,Wikeley,N |
| Date | 15 June 2020 |
| Published date | 22 July 2020 |
Scranage v Information Commissioner [2020] UKUT 196 (AAC)
DECISION OF THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
(ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS CHAMBER)
The DECISION of the Upper Tribunal is to dismiss the appeal by the Appellant.
The decision of the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) (Information
Rights) dated 10 October 2019 under file reference EA/2019/0145/GDPR does not
involve any material error on a point of law. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision stands.
This decision is given under section 11 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
REASONS FOR DECISION
The outcome in a couple of sentences
1. The First-tier Tribunal made some mistakes in how it dealt with Mr Scranage’s
case, but those errors did not materially affect the outcome. Ultimately the First-tier
Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) was right to conclude that (i) Mr Scranage’s application to
the Tribunal was late; and (ii) he should not be granted an extension of time.
The factual context to this appeal
2. Mr Scranage is a former employee of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
(“the Council”). Over the years, Mr Scranage has made a series of requests to the
Council under both FOIA and the data protection legislation. Such requests typically
concern information in the form of e-mails that Mr Scranage believes the Council
holds in the work e-mail account he had whilst employed with the authority. The
parting of the ways between Mr Scranage and the Council in 2009 was acrimonious
and led to his unsuccessful claim for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination in
the Employment Tribunal. Mr Scranage’s subsequent appeal was dismissed by the
Employment Appeal Tribunal (see further Scranage v Rochdale Metropolitan
Borough Council (UKEAT/0032/17/DM)) and the Court of Appeal later refused him
permission to appeal (A2/2018/1007). Mr Scranage has also brought separate
proceedings under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) in the First-tier
Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) – see Scranage v Information Commissioner
and Rochdale MBC (EA/2011/0229) and Scranage v Information Commissioner
(EA/2017/0144) (which concerned a complaint against Oldham MBC, rather than
Rochdale).
3. There have also been proceedings in the criminal courts. In December 2014 Mr
Scranage was convicted on a charge of harassment contrary to section 2 of the
Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The alleged harassment referred to a course
of conduct in contacting two employees of the Council between 2011 and 2014 (for
the purposes of this decision those employees, who were his managers, are referred
to simply as AG and MM). However, the Appellant’s conviction was subsequently
quashed on appeal by Manchester Crown Court (see what appears to be an
unofficial transcript of the judgment at pp.19-23 of the file). However, as we shall see,
that acquittal was accompanied by a restraining order made against Mr Scranage,
which is still in force.
The legislative context to this appeal
4. The Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018, which received Royal Assent on 23 May
2018, updated data protection legislation, especially in the light of the EU’s General
Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In particular, section 165 of the DPA 2018 sets
out a data subject’s right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner about
To continue reading
Request your trial
1 cases
-
(1) James Killock and Michael Veale v The Information Commissioner (2) EW v The Information Commissioner (3) Eveleen Coghlan (on behalf of C) v The Information Commissioner
...a response to his complaint. The matter was accordingly closed. In light of the ruling in Scranage v Information Commissioner [2020] UKUT 196 (AAC), s.166 could not be read more widely to include substantive 41. Judge Macmillan granted permission to appeal in respect of ground two of the gr......