Liam Harron v Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and the Information Commissioner (Interested Party): [2026] UKUT 48 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Stout on 02 February 2026.
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Judicial Summary
The First-tier Tribunal had not erred in law in refusing to certify a contempt for the consideration of the Upper Tribunal under section 61 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) in relation to the public authority’s response to substituted decision notice issued by the First-tier Tribunal in earlier appeal proceedings. Although compliance with the substituted decision notice was a matter for the First-tier Tribunal and not the Information Commissioner (IC) (see IC v (1) Moss; (2) Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames [2020] UKUT 174 (AAC)), in this case the public authority had complied with the terms of the substituted decision notice by issuing “a fresh response to the Appellant’s request, not relying on section 14”. The question of whether the public authority’s response (which stated that the information was not ‘held’) complied with FOIA was a different question that could form the subject of a complaint to the IC under section 50, but was not capable of constituting a contempt of court so the First-tier Tribunal had not erred in law in refusing to certify it under section 61(4).