Basildon District Council (06/A/16993 + two others)
Access to information Maladministration causing injustice
09 July 2008
Basildon District Council published personal and sensitive information about traveller families and their children in a Committee report and on its website. The Ombudsman said the information included medical details, the names and ages of all the children living on the site, and the children’s educational needs. The Council agreed to apologise to the families, and he recommended that it should also pay £300 compensation to three families who had complained to him.
‘Mrs Oak’, ‘Mrs Birch’ and ‘Mrs Ash’ (not their real names for legal reasons) were travellers who lived with their families on an unauthorised site on green belt land in the Council’s area. They complained that the Council breached provisions in the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998 by publishing personal and sensitive information about them and members of their families in a report to the Development Control and Traffic Management Committee. The report was considered in the open part of the Council’s committee meeting, and copies were available to members of the public and the press who attended. The report was also published on the Council’s website and remained there for 10 days.
Mrs Oak, Mrs Birch and Mrs Ash were shocked and outraged when they learned that such sensitive information had been put into the public domain and they worried for some time about the possible repercussions for themselves and their children.
The Ombudsman found that the Council’s decision to publish the personal details in the report was maladministration, commenting “My view is that the Council could have chosen to report the information to Councillors in anonymised and summarised form, or it could have treated it as exempt information and placed it in Part 2 of the meeting [from which the press and the public are excluded], in order to prevent the widespread circulation and disclosure of detailed sensitive medical and educational information.”
The Ombudsman reported “Fortunately, neither the complainants nor their children suffered any serious repercussions. Although the complainants worried that this information might fall into the wrong hands and their children could be put at risk, no incidents occurred following publication of the children’s details.”
He found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Council should pay each complainant £300 compensation and send them a letter apologising for the distress caused by publication of the information.
The Council had already changed its procedures to ensure that sensitive and personal information about individuals is considered in Part 2 of committee meetings from which the press and the public are excluded.
Remedy
The Council did not agree to pay compensation to the complainants, and so the Ombudsman issued a further report on 12 November 2008. This did not persuade the Council to change its stance.
However, following judicial review proceedings taken by the Children's Legal Centre on behalf of the complainants, the Council finally paid the outstanding compensation and issued letters of apology.
LGO satisfied with Council's response, after further report: 25 January 2011
Date Updated: 02/02/11