Wye Valley NHS Trust

The complainant has requested private board minutes in which the Trust’s PFI contract was discussed as well as legal advice received by the Trust from Bevan Brittan discussing the PFI contract. The Trust considered section 36(2)(c) provided a basis for withholding the minutes and section 42(1) applied to the legal advice, contained within a series of emails. The Commissioner’s decision is that section 36(2)(c) is not engaged in relation to information in the minutes and, for the legal advice, section 42(1) is engaged but the public interest favours disclosure. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose the information in the private board minutes which refers to the PFI contract, as identified by the Trust; and disclose the emails containing legal advice within the scope of the request with redactions for personal data where appropriate.