Alistair Sloan, Advocate

FOI: Glasgow Police Station Duty Scheme

November 28th, 2011

Following the coming into force of the Criminal Procedure (Legal Assistance, Detention and Appeals) (Scotland) Act 2010 the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) devised a controversial police station duty scheme.

At the time it was heavily discussed and debated. Solicitors were complaining that they were left largely n the dark as to how the scheme was operating and even today controversies still remain. SLAB were unwilling to provide details of the scheme including the names of solicitors and firms registered on the scheme.

Many attempts were made through the Freedom of Information provisions and also out with those provisions to have information released into the public domain about the operation of the scheme. One person took SLAB all the way to the Scottish Information Commissioner. Today the Commissioner’s Office has published the decision notice issued dated 21 November 2011 finding in SLABs favour.

This is hardly surprising because of the legal position SLAB finds itself in when it comes to FOI. Under Section 26 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) any information held by a Scottish public authority is exempt if its disclosure is prohibited by any other enactment. Under Section 34 of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 any information that is furnished to the Board pursuant to SLAB for the purposes of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 is exempt from disclosure without the consent of the person(s) who provided SLAB with the information. Section 26 of the FOISA is an absolute exemption (see Section 2(2)(a) of the Act) and as such there is no requirement to consider whether the disclosure is in the public interest or not.

The effect of Section 34 of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 coupled with Section 26 of FOISA means that almost anything held by SLAB would appear to be exempt from disclosure under FOISA. The Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 was obviously passed before the concept of there being a right to access information held by a public authority gained a wide acceptance. It might, therefore, be worthwhile that any future changes to FOISA consider such provisions.

The Commissioner’s decision can be read in full here
I’m sorry, we can’t confirm or deny that

November 11th, 2011

I was having a look at the list of current applications currently before the Scottish Information Commissioner for a decision pursuant to Section 47(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. One application in particular caught my attention, probably due to its constitutional significance.

Application 201101968 concerns the Scottish Government’s use of Section 18 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 in relation to a request for information seeking independent legal advice held by the Scottish Ministers on an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU. All I or any other member of the public has to go on at this stage is simply the information contained within the list of current applications (more could be made public by way of a request for information to the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner), but it will be interesting to read the Commissioner’s Decision Notice.

Section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 requires public authorities to confirm in writing to an applicant for information whether the authority holds any information falling within the scope of the applicant’s request and to communicate any information not exempt under the Act to the applicant. However, Section 18 provides that a public authority can refuse to confirm or deny whether it holds the information sought where the information would be exempt under the Act and to confirm or deny its existence would be contrary to the public interest.

It seems odd that the Scottish Ministers feel that it is contrary to the public interest to confirm or deny whether it holds such information (it’s almost guaranteed to be exempt as it comprises legal advice which is ordinarily exempt from disclosure). In fact it would be rather worrying if the Scottish Ministers had not obtained such legal advice.

Of course, it is hard to make any judgment on the situation without the benefit of having seen the actual request submitted and the arguments advanced by the Scottish Ministers in support of utilising Section 18 of the Act. Why would the Ministers feel that the public interest lies in not even confirming whether it has sought legal advice on this matter? Given the Scottish Minister’s preferred option of an independent Scotland in the European Union and its frequent and continued assertions as to Scotland’s legal status over this matter (including that of joining the Euro) some would say that it indicates the Ministers have sought legal advice. Whether any advice they may or may not have sought supports their position is something that the public are never likely to know unless the Ministers decide to publish it (or the Scottish Information commissioner takes a very rare decision to order its release in response to a FOI request.

I will certainly be watching this request with great interest and look forward to reading the Commissioner’s Decision Notice when it is eventually released (assuming some compromise isn’t reached between the applicant and the Ministers during the investigation in which case a Decision Notice is unlikely). Interesting times indeed.
Is there really a gap in the law?

November 9th, 2011

One of the Scottish Government’s main reasons for introducing the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill is that there is allegedly a gap in the current law to deal with these offences. It is undeniable that Breach of the Peace has continued to be re-defined in a way that excludes a lot of conduct from it. However, in 2010 the SNP Government introduced a new offence of Threatening or Abusive Behaviour (Criminal Justice and Licencing (Scotland) Act 2010, s.38) to deal with these cases.

This new offence has been in force for little over one year now and the Scottish Government are continuing to maintain that the law is in adequate. If indeed the law is inadequate then the question as to why they did not do more in the last Parliament to deal with this problem needs answered. However, it doesn’t actually appear that there is a gap in the law. Earlier this year I published on here figures that had been released by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) in answer to an FOI request I had made on the s.38 offence. I have since followed that up with another request seeking more detailed figures and today a response was sent to me by COPFS.

This second FOI request related to s.38 offences that had been aggravated by religious prejudice pursuant to section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. The figures released today by COPFS cover the period since the offence came into force until 31 October 2011.

COPFS had received reports from the police containing 331 charges under s.38 where the alleged offence was said to be aggravated by religious prejudice. Of those 331 charges, 309 were prosecuted (with decisions on 4 charges still to be taken).

Of those prosecuted 16 were prosecuted on indictment with seven of those resulting in a conviction and a further seven still to come to trial. Out of the 293 charges prosecuted summarily, 192 resulted in a conviction and 82 are still to come to trial.

The COPFS were unable to advise how many of those offences related to football as the database does not record that data.

This suggests that the existing provisions are being utilised by the police and there have been a significant number of successful convictions for threatening or abusive behaviour that has been aggravated by religious prejudice. The fact that COPFS cannot confirm how many offences have been committed in relation to football is an important gap in the data and is something that should really be explored before the Scottish Government declare Scots law to have a gap that needs fixed urgently by legislation. The fact remains that the Scottish Government are making assertions that simply cannot be supported by evidence and where evidence does come to light it suggests that the Government’s position is even less credible than it was prior to the new evidence coming to light.

The Scottish Government really ought to scrap this Bill and look at the issues properly. Assessing the evidence is an important aspect of deciding on an appropriate way forward and it would appear that the Scottish Government have failed to properly assess the evidence.
COPFS and FOI: review to be carried out

September 29th, 2011

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) have confirmed that they will conduct what is essentialy a second internal review into a wholly unsatsifactory response to a request for infromation which had no lawful route of being appealed based on the way that the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The background to this story and request can be read here
Right to Know Day

September 29th, 2011
Wednesday 28 September 2011 was International Right to Know Day. On 1 January 2005 a general right to access information held by a wide range of public bodies came into force. This general right is enshrined in a number of pieces of both primary and secondary legislation and it is an important right in the armoury of the people to hold those in power to account and one to be celebrated.

The move internationally is certainly towards a position of greater transparency in government and public life. The FOI legislation in the UK has been used to effect major changes in the way politics has been done. One such example of where FOI was used to uncover immoral practices was in the MPs expenses scandal. It is easy to overlook that had it not been for a simple FOI request that the scale of MPs claiming expenses for things they really ought to have not. This scandal has resulted in members of the House of Lords and former MPs spending time in prison for unlawful practices uncovered through the examination of FOI disclosures and has resulted in greater transparency in expenses across the public sector generally. This is just one example of many where FOI has been used as a force for good.

There have been the rather strange requests as well which cast FOI in a bad light and show that it can be abused by people. There have been requests for information relating to plans held by the public authority in question to deal with a Zombie invasion. While, the person behind the original request might well have had a legitimate personal fear about such an invasion and wanted to know that the authority was ready to deal with such an eventuality it did result in a large number of “copycat” requests where it was clear the request was not really serious at all. However, there does exist within the FOI legislation ways to deal with such requests so as not to allow them to cause a drain on public resources.

On the whole it is hard to argue that FOI is a bad thing or that it should be scrapped. Yesterday was a good time to remind people of their information access rights. Your rights to access information held by public authorities in the UK can be found in:
The all provide different rights to access different information and all have a presumption of disclosure written into them. This means that the authority has to show justifiable grounds, as permitted in the relevant legislation, as to why it is not disclosing the information requested by you.

Making requests under these pieces of legislation is easy and is made even easier through sites like What Do They Know (WDTK). However, it is important to remember that rights do come with responsibilities. The single most important responsibility that comes along with these rights is to use them sensibly and not to abuse them.

Always do your research first! Is the information you requested already in the public domain? If it is and you can be expected to access it reasonably then the public authority is not required to provide it to you through the legislation. By ensuring you do your research first you save valuable time and public money by not submitting requests unnecessarily. Although the authority is not obliged to provide information already available publically to you they are still required to respond telling you this. It does take time and money to respond to such requests.

Always look at the authority’s publication scheme before making a request. The scheme may tell you how you can get the information you want or where you can find it. Again, this saves making a pointless request and saves on both time and public money.

Don’t just fire your request off as soon as you have the idea. Think about it carefully. Make sure you draft the request in a way that makes it clear what information you want from the public authority. This avoids having your request refused on cost grounds, makes sure you get the information you actually want and also means you won’t receive lots of information you don’t really want. Requests that are poorly drafted and too wide may result in delays as the authority seeks clarification from you or in the request being refused as it is too costly to comply with. Maybe try drafting your request and then going back to it the next day. Read it through with fresh eyes and see if you could tidy it up before sending it. Also think about who you are sending the request to. Are they really the most likely authority to hold the information? Don’t just send it off to everyone who might hold it. This causes a drain on public resources. Of course it might be perfectly legitimate to make the same or a similar request to multiple public authorities – just don’t do it for the sake of doing it.

Contacting the authority before submitting it might save you some time. FOI Officers are generally very helpful and experienced. They might be able to tell you before you make your request that they’re not the best people to ask and who might be instead or might even know that the information you want is to be published soon.

Another good thing to do is to look at disclosure logs and WDTK. While not every authority operates a disclosure log and not all requests appear on WDTK you might find the information you are seeking has already been published by the authority through one of these two sources. This saves you the 20 day wait for a response and the authority from having to respond to your request. Again, saving time and public money! It may be the case that some of the information you want appears in one of these two locations and by locating this it means you reduce the drain on resources by the authority having to consider whether it is required to disclose it again to you.

If you need advice then the Office Scottish Information Commissioner and the Information Commissioner’s Office both operate advice services and they can advise you on all aspects of FOI from how to make a valid request to what to do next. The staff at both organisations are very helpful and knowledgeable. If they don’t know the answer or have it to hand they’ll go away and find it for you always getting back to you as quickly as possible.

You should contact the Scottish Information Commissioner about requests made under the following pieces of legislation:
- Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
- Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004
The Information Commissioner’s Office can help you with queries about requests made under the following pieces of legislation:
- Data Protection Act 1998
- Freedom of Information Act 2000
- Environmental Information Regulations 2004
The respective websites of these organisations are full of useful information and always worth a visit if you need to know something. You’ll find all sorts of guidance documents, advice pages and information that will help you at all stages in your request from making the request initially to applying to the Information Commissioners for a decision where necessary.

Please do use your information access rights, but use them responsibly and don’t abuse them.

Happy (belated) International right to know day!
COPFS and FOI

September 29th, 2011

Yesterday the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) issued a wholly unsatisfactory response to a request for information made under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. However, in terms of the law there is nothing that can be done about it.

On 13 August 2011 a request was made to the COPFS for all of the information it had released under FOISA and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004. The COPFS does not as a matter of routine operate a disclosure log where it makes available the information it has released under the Freedom of Information legislation in Scotland. This is something that is considered as good practice by the Commissioner, but few authorities actually operate such a log. The What Do They Know (WDTK) website is a good place to effectively create a disclosure log by default as all responses are made publically available instantly. It was with this background that the request of 13 August was made.

Unfortunately the COPFS confused this request with a request made for statistics relating to the offence of Hamesucken. It replied to the latter request, but did not the former. This mistake was only discovered when a request for review was made under the provisions of FOISA. On 28 September 2011 the COPFS responded withholding two disclosures it had previously made.

This withholding of information is rather odd as information released under FOI is a disclosure to the public and not just the individual who made the original request. As can be seen from the response the information was disclosed to the other applicants “exercising their rights under FOISA”. Thus that disclosure was made to the public at large and not simply those individual applicants. If personal information is now involved, as the COPFS have advanced, then this must also have been the case at the time of the original disclosure and would therefore have been exempt under FOISA when it was originally requested. The justification advanced by the COPFS in their substantive response has absolutely no basis in law. Essentially, once a disclosure has been made under FOISA then the information can’t really then be later exempt in another request. This is because the information is now considered to be in the public domain.

The problem with this request arises with other provisions within FOISA. Section 48 of the Act means that the COPFS cannot be investigated by the Scottish Information Commissioner under Section 47(1) – an application for such an investigation would be invalid. The only exception is where the request relates to information held by them as a result of the Lord Advocate’s position as a Scottish Minister under the Scotland Act 1998. This request clearly does not fall into that exemption.

The result of this general invalidity of applications to the Commissioner in relation to the COPFS means that there is legally nothing that can be done regarding this request now. Technically the COPFS response issued on 28 September 2011 is a response to the request for review. It satisfies the requirements of FOISA to be such. The COPFS have reached a decision on the initial application. In the view of the commissioner that is the only option open to an authority where the complaint in a review is a failure to reach a decision on the request.

This creates a problem and it is certainly not a position that works in terms of the spirit of the legislation. Something really ought to be done to rectify this wholly unsatisfactory situation. The only options open are to rely on the goodwill of the COPFS to act in a way that is in line with the spirit of the legislation and look again at its decision or to begin involving MSPs to contact the COPFS in the hope that this persuades them to reconsider their decision. It is certainly hoped that the COPFS will act in a way that could be described as in line with the spirit of the legislation and conduct what would technically be a second request for review without the need to involve elected members of Parliament.

While it is certainly not suggested that the COPFS have acted improperly and tried to consciously withhold information, this situation highlights how they could do so if they wished. Simply by ignoring a request for information and a request for review they effectively kill the request. They could of course (and again it is not suggested that they have acted in this way) apply exceptions that would never be upheld by the Commissioner in response to a request for review based upon a technical aspect as a way of preventing disclosure, there being no recourse for the applicant.

This is a situation that cannot be allowed to exist. The position is wholly out of step with the spirit of the legislation. There are two key amendments that could be made that would address this issue while keeping the general principles behind the inclusion of the COPFS in s.48. Those two amendments would be:

1) To permit the Scottish Information Commissioner to conduct a limited investigation into the COPFS where the complaint is a failure to respond to a request for information and a request for review. The Commissioner should have the power to issue a decision notice compelling the COPFS to issue a substantive response in the way he can other public bodies subject to FOISA where it is found they have simply not complied with Sections 10(1) and 21(1) of FOISA. Of course, it’s not practical to have him investigate himself and certainly it would be hoped that the commissioner’s office would never fail to comply with these technical aspects. In light of this the amendment should only comply to s.48(b) and (c).

2) To permit an applicant a right to request a second internal review, on the same terms as is currently contained within the Act, where following a request for review into a failure to respond within the required timescales the authority (including the Commissioner) seeks to apply exemptions. Of course, this would not prevent the authority from deliberately withholding information if it wanted to do so, but would provide a legal route for genuine errors in the application of exemptions to be rectified.

These would be wholly sensible amendments to make to the Act and would not overly burden these public authorities. It would provide a satisfactory resolution for the situation that is currently in existence based on the way in which the legislation is currently drafted.

The Scottish Government has promised to make sensible amendments to strengthen the Act and it is hoped that these amendments will feature in that Bill when it goes before Parliament during the 2011-12 year.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue: reason for marking as “Private and Confidential”

September 21st, 2011

Hampshire Fire and Rescue have provided a comment regarding the curious paragraph that appears in their Freedom of Information Act responses. They claim that it is to assist the service in remaining applicant blind by ensuring that the correspondence is only dealt with by their FOI Officer. They appear to, but have not expressly, refute the suggestion that the request is so that they can try and exclude correspondence recieved in relation to FOI requests from future FOI requests.

It is rather odd that Hampshire Fire and Rescue feel that by including such a paragraph and getting applicants to mark their correspondence as “Private and Confidential” that this will ensure that the authority is applicant blind. Applicants are, of course, obliged by section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to provide thier real name in correspondence so having knowledge of the name of the applicant is something that doesn’t appear to affect the “applicant blind” part of the process. Indeed knowing the name is essential if an authority is going to be able to enforce the “vexatious and repeated requests” or the “aggegated costs” provisions. It also appears to be approached from a Data Protection point of view, which appears just as odd as the applicant blind approach.

The response provided by Hampshire Fire and Rescue can be read below:

Thank you for your email. The statement you refer to is added to all of our Freedom of Information correspondence to ensure that Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service Information Compliance Officer and her colleagues are the recipient of all requests and subsequent correspondence that may be associated with a request under the Freedom of Information Act. All FoI requests are applicant blind to the person(s) providing the information, and this is the reason why this statement is added, as it will ensure that the requesters details remain confidential. For responses made publically available through the website “Whatdotheyknow.com” we provide the same level of confidentiality when handling a request. For those requests from private individuals then their personal information will also remain confidential, and this is to comply with data protection. HFRS publish all FoI requests on our website, but remove all personal information, regardless of the source of the request.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue: Please mark as “Private and Confidential”

September 21st, 2011

I was looking through the most recently successful FOI requests on Whatdotheyknow.com when I discovered this response from Hampshire Fire and rescue Service. The response curiously contained the following paragraph:

Any future correspondence you may have with HFRS in relation to this matter should be marked “Private & Confidential” and sent to the Information Compliance Officer at the above address.

It struck me as somewhat odd that in a response to a request for information made to a public authority under statutory provisions designed to promote openness and tranparency that a public authority would include such a request. I went and had a look through the other responses from Hampshire Fire and Rescue available on the WDTK website and discovered that it was indeed standard practice for them to include this request in their responses.

I have had a think as to why they might include such a response but keep coimg back to the idea that maybe it is a way of trying to exclude correspondence from release under future FOI requests. This would, of course, be in complete contravention of the spirit of the Freedom of Information legislation. It would be counter to the principles of transparency and openness. Indeed, if it was an attempt to circumvent the Act and prevent disclosure of correspondence it would, morally speaking, be a very serious issue.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service have been contacted seeking their comment on the purpose of this request contained within these responses. They have also been asked directly whether it is an attempt to exclude correspondence from release under future requests for information. Any response provided by Hampshire Fire and Rescue will be published in full on this site.
Riot sentences too harsh?

August 17th, 2011

There has been a lot of debate and discussion in the last week about the sentences being handed down by courts around England in connection with the mass-scale disturbances that took place over the space of four days last week.

The Courts have been handing down what appear to be, on the face of things, some very tough and overly harsh sentences which appear to be reflecting the public mood and especially the mood of the Government. More than 60% of those charged have been remanded into custody pending their cases being dealt with in the courts; this is significantly higher than normal. Last year only about 10% of all defendants were remanded in total. Some commentators have questioned this much wider than normal use of remand, and even gone as far as to suggest that the benches may even be trying to use remand as part of the punishment. There is, in law, a presumption in favour of bail being granted. There are no offences where the opposite is true. It is for the Crown to prove that the defendant should not be granted bail and instead be held in custody. Holding a person in custody, particularly before they have entered a plea of guilty or been found guilty by the Court is a serious matter. It is removing the liberty of individuals who are legally still innocent of any crime and are only suspected of having committed the crimes alleged of them. Therefore, it is not something that should be entered into lightly. Indeed it is not something that magistrates or judges would enter into lightly.

Yesterday two teenagers were sent to prison for four years over Facebook events they had created in order to try and incite riots. These sentences do appear overly harsh, but the fact that both defendants received the same sentence when the facts were really quite different is also of concern. In one case it is reported that the defendant not only created the Facebook event, but had turned up at the location detailed in the event as the meeting point. While it is reported that the other individual removed the event and apologised before police came to arrest him. If those facts are indeed true then there is a higher level of culpability in the first case and it would ordinarily be expected that this would lead to a more severe sentence than the second defendant.

Sentencing is not all about punishment, retribution and deterrence, but this is what sentences being handed down around England in relation to the mass public disorder appear to be about. There is another important element to the sentencing and that is proportionality. In order for the sentence to be proportionate the context in which that offence was committed must be looked at.

The offences with which people have been charged in relation to the mass public disorder are quite rightly being aggravated by the context of mass public-disorder. It would be reasonable to expect that people who are convicted or plead guilty to these offences to be treated by the courts in a more serious way.

The ordinary rules of sentencing should not be set aside in extraordinary circumstances. In order for justice to be justice at all it must be fair to all parties, the defendant included. In order that it is fair magistrates and judges should follow the same guidelines and processes as they would normally and not simply ignore them. Indeed, in England and Wales courts are bound by Section 172 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which requires them to have regard to any definitive sentencing guidelines issued by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. The definitive guidance issued by the Council are published online.

Many commentators are of the opinion that the Court of Appeal is going to be rather busy as they review decisions not to grant bail and decisions on sentences handed down by the courts in relation to the mass-disorder of last week. Court time is already at a premium and it is going to become filled with cases where defendants are appealing their sentences.

One factor that has been highlighted on a number of occasions has been the all night sittings of Magistrates’ Courts. Legitimate questions exist regarding the quality of the judgment of Magistrates and of representation (on both the Crown and Defence sides of the court) when cases are being dealt with in the early hours of the morning.

In Scotland a number of persons have been charged with offences relating to inciting riots on Facebook. It will be interesting to observe how the Scottish Courts handle these cases if and when the cases come before them for sentencing. Scotland didn’t see any of the scenes of mass-scale public-disorder that provide the backdrop and context for the sentences being handed down in Scotland. There does not appear to be the same level of public mood as there is in England, which is no doubt fuelled by the disorder. Therefore, it might be reasonable to expect a more considered and measured approach to sentencing. That said; each of the accused persons have been remanded into custody so hopes for a more measured and sensible approach to sentencing in these cases might be no more than wishful thinking.
Scottish Government drops FOI Court of Session appeal

July 16th, 2011

It has been reported that the Scottish Government has discontinued its case before the Court of Session in relation to a requirement placed upon it by the Scottish Information Commissioner to release information withheld by it which had been requested by Mr Simon Johnson, the Scottish Political Editor at the Daily Telegraph.

On 17 February 2009 a request for information was sent by Mr Johnson to the Scottish Ministers requesting information regarding the revised local income tax plan and the Ministers refused to disclose the information citing the exemption covering information gathered for the formation of Scottish Administration policy. Mr Johnson appealed to the commissioner following the Scottish Government maintaining the exemption following a review. The Commissioner found that the public interest of maintaining the exemption was outweighed by the public interest in releasing the information and ordered its disclosure. The Scottish Government appealed to the Court of Session.

The contents of the documents the Scottish Government were seeking to keep secret were leaked which meant that the appeal was no longer required. The appeal has cost the taxpayer £100,000 which is not an insignificant amount of money, especially in a time of Government cuts and could have probably been better spent on other things, but instead the Scottish Government decided to spend it on keeping information secret from the public.

The Commissioner has in the past commented on the performance of the Scottish Ministers in complying with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) and frequently when looking through the recent decisions of the Commissioner there can be decisions found where the Scottish Ministers are party. Personal experience coupled with this leads me to believe that the Scottish Government actively seek to keep information from the public and prefer to operate the business of government in private.

This looks to have been a complete waste of taxpayer’s money to prevent potentially embarrassing details from being released to the public. The Commissioner has been very clear that exemptions are not to be used to prevent potentially embarrassing information from being disclosed.

It’s time that the Scottish Government is more open and more transparent rather than only releasing the information that benefits them and shows them in a good light. The people of Scotland have a right to know what is going on inside Government.

The Scottish Information Commissioner is still considering an application regarding information withheld by the Scottish Government in relation to the post-Cadder debacle and readers of Avizandum Times will be the first to know what the Commissioners decision is when that is released.

Decision 025/2011 Mr Simon Johnson of the Daily Telegraph and the Scottish Ministers