Prakash Puchooa v The Information Commissioner

A tribunal may give concise reasons, and may rely on material contained in another decision, but its reasons must still explain clearly how and why it resolved the principal issues. They must be read as a whole, in their context and structure, and must permit an appellate court to assess whether the result was sustainable.

Where proceedings are struck out for having no reasonable prospect of success, adequate reasons must address that distinct and demanding threshold. They must explain why the respondent’s case was preferred to the appellant’s case. Reasons which require excessive reconstruction from extraneous material, and do not show that the correct strike-out test was applied, disclose a material error of law.

The appellant requested information from his local authority under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 concerning its handling of his anti-social behaviour complaints. The authority said that it held no further relevant information, apart from material already supplied or exempt personal information. The Information Commissioner accepted that account and issued a decision notice requiring no further action.

The appellant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal. On the Commissioner’s application, the First-tier Tribunal struck out the appeal under rule 8(3)(c) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009. It gave brief reasons. The appellant then appealed the strike-out decision to the Upper Tribunal.

The central issue was whether the First-tier Tribunal’s reasons adequately showed why the appeal had no reasonable prospect of success.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision to strike out the appeal was made in error of law. Its reasons were inadequate and the error was material.

2. Reasons need not be lengthy. They must, however, be clear enough to tell the reader how and why the tribunal resolved the main issues. They must be read as a whole and in their context and structure. A tribunal may rely on the Information Commissioner’s findings, but it cannot give reasons so sparse that the reader must import too much from external material.

3. The First-tier Tribunal appeared broadly to accept the Commissioner’s case. That did not answer the application before it. A strike-out decision required it to be satisfied that the appellant’s appeal had no reasonable prospect of success, rather than merely that the Commissioner’s decision was likely to be upheld after a merits assessment. Adequate reasons therefore had to engage with that threshold and explain why the Commissioner’s submissions were preferred to the appellant’s detailed challenge. They did neither.

4. The reasons also did not enable an appellate court to assess whether the determination was sustainable. In a case of inadequate reasons, it cannot be known whether the correct test was applied or, if it was, whether it was applied correctly. The error was consequently material.

5. Under section 12(2)(a) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, the Upper Tribunal set aside the strike-out decision. Under section 12(2)(b)(i), it remitted the Commissioner’s strike-out application to the First-tier Tribunal for reconsideration afresh by a different judge.

• Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals Chamber): Allowed the appeal and set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s strike-out decision under section 12(2) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007: [2024] UKUT 290 (AAC).
• First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber): On 31 July 2023, in proceedings EA/2023/0279, struck out the appeal from the Information Commissioner’s decision notice.