ELSPA warned Govt of cultural tax break concerns

In the interest of clarity, the following is an extract from a note of a meeting held between ELSPA and Sion Simon, held November 25, 2009.

A paragraph has been withheld, with details also included for clarity.

Extract from note of meeting with ELSPA on 25/11/09.

Sion Simon had lunch yesterday with Michael Rawlinson and Phil (Snape) from ELSPA....

ELSPA feel that support for education, internships and apprenticeships would be more helpful to the industry and would like a fund, similar to the UKFC's, for the games industry. They also think that the support scheme run in Finland would also be helpful to the industry.

[One paragraph of this note has been withheld under section 43 and 35 of the Freedom of Information Act. The rest of the note concerned other subjects and has been redacted on the basis that it is not relevant to the request].

Details of the reasons for withholding the paragraph

From the DCMS:

Officials have carried out a search of our paper and electronic records and I can confirm that we hold a limited amount of information in relation to discussions with ELSPA.

I am pleased to set out below the large majority of the (limited) relevant information we hold. However, I am unable to provide one paragraph of the note of the meeting of November 26 as it is exempt from publication under section 43(2) (would, or would be likely to, damage the commercial interests of ELSPA) and 35(1)(a)(formulation or development of government policy).

Both section 43 and 35 of the FOI Act are 'qualified exemptions', which means that before taking any decision to apply them, the Department must carry out a test of whether the balance of public interest lies in releasing the information or withholding it.

In favour of releasing the information we considered the following points:

In relation to section 43

• The general interest in scrutiny of government action.
• The public interest in knowing whether ELSPA's comments contradict its public position or the position of its members.

In relation to section 35

• The general public interest in disclosure
• Greater transparency makes government more accountable to the electorate and increases trust;
• The public interest in being able to assess the quality of advice being given to ministers.

However, on balance we decided that the public interest lay in withholding the information because:

In relation to section 43

• The information in question was an internal note of a meeting taken by a member of staff who was not a policy official. It was not, in fact, an accurate reflection of what was discussed at the meeting. Releasing it would be likely to unfairly damage the confidence that its members and contacts may have in it, and would at least require ELSPA to publicly rebut the contents of the note;
• Disclosure would also make it less likely that ELPSA or other organisations within DCMS sectors would provide the department with commercially sensitive information in the future and consequently undermine the ability of the department to fulfil its role.

In relation to section 35

• The fact that the information in question is an incorrect description of what was discussed at the meeting significantly reduces the public interest in its release. The information is more likely to misinform the public than contribute to the public interest, and its release would be likely to divert the debate towards theoretical discussions of where policy may potentially have gone.
• Policy towards tax relief is still in development. Releasing this information would be likely to confuse the current debate. We do not consider this to be in the public interest.