The First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber) has upheld the refusal of a freedom of information request to a special educational needs school as vexatious under section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, finding that a polite, factual and non-burdensome request could still amount to a misuse of the Act where its motive was the pursuit of a case against a named individual while criticising the Information Commissioner for relying on undisclosed allegations the requester had no opportunity to rebut.
Dismissing an appeal by Jonathan Samuel against a decision notice of April 2025, a panel comprising Judge Harris and members Scott and Shaw found that two of the four Dransfield factors - burden and harassment - were not made out, but that the factors of motive and value were sufficiently demonstrated to render the request vexatious on the balance of probabilities.
Samuel asked Kisharon Noé School in June 2024 for the number of referrals of pupils to social services since September 2019, broken down by local authority and type of referral, alongside figures for parents banned from the premises, reports to the police and their outcomes, and annual spending on lawyers' fees and mediation. The school refused the request as vexatious, maintained that position on internal review, and the Commissioner upheld the refusal, concluding that the impact on the school was disproportionate and unjustified by any serious purpose or value.
Section 14(1) FOIA relieves a public authority of the duty to comply with a vexatious request. Applying the Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal decisions in Dransfield, the panel reminded itself that vexatiousness is a high hurdle, that the ultimate question is whether the request is a manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of FOIA, and that section 14 must not operate as a catch-all exemption or introduce a public interest threshold for requesters, citing Lord Sumption's description in Kennedy v Charity Commission of FOIA's prima facie right to disclosure.
The Tribunal made a series of findings in Samuel's favour. The request, taken in isolation, was not unduly burdensome, its tone was polite and factual, and three requests in total did not amount to a vexatious course of dealings. The panel found Samuel and his wife honest and straightforward witnesses, genuine in their concerns about safeguarding in SEN schools, and was not persuaded on the balance of probabilities that staff had been harassed or distressed.
It also gave little weight to a timeline of interactions the school had supplied to the Commissioner, finding it "not as strong" as it initially appeared when set against Samuel's extensive rebuttals, and holding that it was not fair of the Commissioner to have issued the decision notice without giving Samuel an opportunity to comment on the allegations.
The appeal nevertheless failed on motive and value. Samuel's evidence was that the figures were sought to test whether safeguarding referrals and institutional conflict spiked during the tenure of a particular former head teacher, with the intention of referring any pattern to regulators, seeking similar data from other schools where the individual had taught, and ultimately pursuing a referral to the Teachers Regulation Agency in the hope of restrictions on the individual's ability to teach.
The panel concluded that the request was part of a long process aimed at building a case against, and discrediting, one person rather than promoting transparency and accountability in public administration, and that this was not a justified or proper use of FOIA. It rejected the submission that the request was "personal in origin but for a public purpose", finding the personal focus was what drove it, and observed that greater accountability over the school's handling of complaints or referrals could have been pursued by requesting its policies and procedures instead.
On value, the Tribunal found that bare figures for legal fees or social services referrals, without context or the circumstances behind them, would be of limited assistance to a member of the public seeking to understand or hold to account a publicly funded school, and that referrals to social services do not of themselves indicate misconduct or mismanagement.
Weighing the factors holistically, the panel concluded that motive and value outweighed the weaker factors of burden and harassment, that the school was entitled to rely on section 14(1), and that the Commissioner's decision notice was in accordance with the law.
Jonathan Wilfred Samuel v The Information Commissioner [2026] UKFTT 00528 (GRC)
