Details of complaints made against IPSA staff by members of the House of Commons, commons staff or members of the public

IPSA holds the information that you request.

During 2018, IPSA received one complaint which concerned a staff member’s tone during a phone conversation.

The complaint was investigated but was not upheld. Weare unable to provide copies or any further information relating to the complaint, to the extent that this information contains personal data about an individual. In accordance with s.40 of the Act, this information is considered to be exempt.

Section 40

Information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person is ‘personal data’, as defined by the General Data Protection Principle (GDPR). Section 40(2)of the FOIA provides that personal information is exempt information if:(a) it constitutes personal data; and (b) the condition set out in s. 40(3A)(a) of FOIA is satisfied, namely that disclosure to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles in the GDPR.

In our view (a) is satisfied because the information sought by you relates to a member of IPSA staff, and(b) is also satisfied because disclosure would breach the first data protection principle in Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR which requires that personal information is processed fairly, lawfully and in a transparent manner; processing includes disclosure. In relation to fairness, IPSA is required to process personal data in a manner in which people, including employees of the organisation, would reasonably expect. Our employees have an expectation of privacy in relation to details of their employment. The information you have requested relates to an employee’s performance, which means it would be unfair to disclose this information to you.

This part of the section 40 exemption is an absolute exemption and so no consideration of public interest arguments for and against disclosure is required.