FoI requests

There have been a number of FoI requests to animal research facilities in the last 10 years. You can find a detailed briefing of recent requests here (pdf). The cases are also summarised below:

Project licence information request (2005-2008)

  • The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) requests the content of five project licences (identified from abstracts on the Home Office website).
  • The Home Office provides additional information beyond the abstracts.
  • BUAV pursues a complaint as it is not satisfied with the additional information.
  • An internal review by the Home Office concludes it took the correct action.
  • The Information Commissioner's enquiry also upholds the Home Office's position.
  • BUAV appeals against the Commissioner's ruling.
  • The enquiry moves to the Information Tribunal, which rules against the Home Office, stating that more information should be disclosed.
  • The Home Office appeals and the case is taken to the High Court.
  • The High Court rejects the conclusions of the Information Tribunal, ruling in favour of the Home Office.
  • BUAV appeals unsuccessfully against the High Court ruling.

Non-human primate information request (2006-2009)

  • BUAV requests information about non-human primates from 11 UK universities.
  • Four universities disclose that they do not use primates in research.
  • Seven universities opt to withhold the information.
  • Another University later discloses that it does not hold primates for research purposes.
  • The Information Commissioner rules against the six remaining universities and orders them to disclose the information.

Procedure request in relation to a single primate (2007-2010)

  • PETA requested information from a University about procedures that were carried out on a macaque featured in a BBC documentary.
  • The University confirmed it held the information and answered some of the questions in the request.
  • PETA complained to the Information Commissioner that the University did not disclose all possible information.
  • The Information Commissioner's Office identified further information that could be disclosed by the University, but deemed that the rest of the information should be withheld by the University.
  • PETA appealed against the ruling, calling for further disclosure
  • The Tribunal Judge ruled in favor of the University, and agreed that an exemption was correctly applied. They also concluded that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighed the public interest in disclosure.

Project licence information request (2008-2010)

  • BUAV requests the content of two project licences from a University.
  • The University withholds the information for a number of reasons.
  • BUAV appeals against the University's decision.
  • The Information Commissioner rules in favour of the University as it had correctly applied certain exemptions to the request.

General information request (2009)

  • Six universities receive an FoI request consisting of nine general questions regarding experimentation on live animals.
  • All the universities respond to the request.
  • However, some of the information is not held in a way that makes it easy to find and put together. In these cases the information is not provided, as to do so would exceed the time limits set out in the FoIA.

General information request (2010)

  • The same questions from the 2009 request, plus an additional three, are sent to the majority of UK Universities that carry out animal research.
  • All universities respond to the request, providing answers to all the questions they can feasibly put together the information for.
  • The substance of the answers is quite variable, because of the way records are held (eg minutes of ERP meetings) at different universities.
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