The First-tier Tribunal has ruled that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) unlawfully refused a series of Freedom of Information requests as vexatious, finding that a former employee who sought internal records relating to a controversial "Black Lives Matter" staff email had a genuine and legitimate purpose in making them.
The dispute in G Boswell v The Information Commissioner and Office for National Statistics [2026] UKFTT 811 (GRC), has its origins in June 2020, when Iain Bell, then Deputy National Statistician at ONS, sent a company-wide staff email that referenced Critical Race Theory, linked to political blogs and a BBC Radio 1 Xtra programme, and signed off with the words "Black Lives Matter." The email attracted both supportive and critical responses from staff.
Gregory Boswell, a field interviewer who describes himself as a "liberal anti-racist," was among those who objected. He sent a private email to Bell criticising what he saw as a breach of Civil Service impartiality obligations. Having received no reply, he later sent a "reply all" email to the whole organisation openly challenging Bell's conduct.
The email chain sparked six weeks of internal debate on the ONS messaging platform Yammer, a closed BAME Network session convened to discuss Boswell's email, a senior leadership statement expressing dismay at the "inappropriate use of emails to debate sensitive issues," and eventually a Mail on Sunday article about the episode.
Boswell lodged a formal grievance in October 2020. After years of internal process, including a partially upheld outcome and a grievance appeal, he was dismissed in June 2023 for failure to maintain acceptable attendance. Employment tribunal proceedings are ongoing.
In May and June 2022, as he prepared for his grievance appeal, Boswell submitted three requests to ONS. He asked for copies of all emails received by Bell in response to his original June 2020 "Black Lives Matter" email; the video recording, minutes and attendee list of the closed BAME Network session held after his July 2020 open email; and copies of all emails Bell received in connection with that July email, including Bell's replies and any subsequent correspondence.
Boswell labelled all three as subject access requests rather than FOI requests, arguing that the information concerned him personally. He added that if ONS felt any elements could only be released under FOIA, it should let him know and he would submit separate requests accordingly.
ONS refused all three in July 2022 on the grounds that they were vexatious under section 14(1) of FOIA, a provision intended to protect public authority resources from being overburdened on disproportionate or improper use of the legislation. The Information Commissioner upheld that decision in February 2023, finding that Boswell appeared to be misusing FOIA to pursue a personal grievance and that his pattern of requests and related correspondence imposed a disproportionate burden on ONS.
In the latest decision - a remitted hearing following an earlier Upper Tribunal ruling that the First-tier Tribunal had been wrong to decline jurisdiction over two of the three requests - the Tribunal had to resolve two distinct issues.
The first was whether the requests were FOIA requests at all, given that Boswell had explicitly labelled them subject access requests. The Tribunal held that they were. Under section 8 of FOIA, any written request that identifies the applicant, gives an address and describes the information sought qualifies as a FOIA request, regardless of what the requester calls it. The fact that a requester insists their request be treated under a different legal regime does not relieve the public authority of its FOIA obligations. The Tribunal rejected Boswell's argument that ONS had reclassified his requests to enable a vexatious refusal, but equally found the reclassification made no legal difference to the outcome.
The second and more substantive question was whether the requests were vexatious. The Tribunal applied the well-established framework from the leading cases on section 14, which requires a holistic assessment across four broad themes: the burden on the public authority, the requester's motive, the value or serious purpose of the requests, and the potential for harassment or distress to staff.
Ruling in Boswell's favour on all three requests, the Tribunal found that while the cumulative burden on ONS from years of requests, grievance correspondence and related disputes was "reasonably significant," it fell short of disproportionate.
The Tribunal noted that some of that burden could have been avoided had ONS responded more clearly to Boswell's initial queries in 2020 and established clearer mechanisms for employees to seek disclosure of information for grievance purposes outside the FOIA and data protection framework.
On purpose and value, the Tribunal was satisfied that Boswell had a genuine private interest in the material. He was seeking evidence relevant to his grievance appeal - specifically to test Bell's assertion at a July 2020 staff video call that he had been "quite shocked" by responses to his email, and to understand what those responses actually said. The Tribunal emphasised that FOIA does not require requesters to demonstrate a public interest: a serious private purpose is sufficient, and the high threshold of vexatiousness is not met simply because a request serves private rather than public ends.
On motive, the Tribunal rejected ONS's suggestion that Boswell was fishing for material to bring new harassment complaints against colleagues. It found his conduct up to the time of the requests had been largely courteous, and that, while a real consideration, the distress to ONS staff had not reached the threshold required to tip the balance toward vexatiousness.
The Tribunal's decision had different practical consequences for the three requests.
The first request — for emails received by Bell following his June 2020 email — had already been addressed in the earlier 2024 tribunal decision, which was not disturbed on appeal.
For the third request - emails received by Bell about Boswell's July 2020 open email - ONS confirmed it had already provided all relevant material to Boswell through the disclosure process in his employment tribunal. The Tribunal therefore required no further steps on that request.
For the second request, relating to the video, minutes and attendee list of the closed BAME Network session, the position was different. ONS had stated it held no information within scope, but had not confirmed whether it had conducted any search. The Tribunal ordered ONS to issue a fresh response to that request within 35 days, without relying on section 14.
While allowing the appeal, the Tribunal did not shy away from noting that Boswell's persistence, although reasonable at the time the requests were made, had since become disproportionate. "His persistence has, by the time of the tribunal hearing, become unreasonable," the Tribunal said, observing that the underlying grievance had by then been exhaustively resolved and the employment relationship had ended. The observation carries no legal force in this decision but may be relevant to how any future requests are assessed.
The tribunal expressed a concern that public authorities may reach too readily for section 14 as a mechanism to manage difficult requesters, rather than engaging with the substance of individual requests on their merits. The Tribunal found that vexatiousness is a high bar, that section 14 is not a catch-all exemption, and that the absence of a public interest in information does not by itself make a request improper.
The Tribunal also said that ONS's practice of routing employee requests through its FOIA and data protection teams, rather than through grievance or HR processes, had created unnecessary friction and may itself have contributed to the volume of requests that ONS later characterised as burdensome.
