Farfan v Information Commissioner & Anor (FREEDOM OF INFORMATION - right of access) [2026] UKUT 16 (AAC) (12 January 2026)

Executive summary

The Upper Tribunal dismissed the appeal and held that the First-tier Tribunal had made no error of law in concluding that the University of Central Lancashire did not hold the requested correspondence for FOIA purposes. The Tribunal set out that the key question under section 3(2)(a) is not merely whether information is physically on a public authority’s systems, but whether it is held on the authority’s own behalf or solely on behalf of someone else.

Key points

• Parties: Dr Jesús Antonio Siller Farfán appealed against the Information Commissioner and the Governing Body of the University of Central Lancashire.
• Holding: appeal dismissed; the University was entitled to withhold the information because it was not “held” by it within section 1(1) and section 3(2)(a) of FOIA.
• Reasoning: the Tribunal said separate consideration should be given to whether information is held and on whose behalf it is held; the relevant focus is the nature of the connection between the authority and the information.
• Facts relied on: the correspondence sought related to Professor Graham Baldwin in his role as deputy chair and director of UCEA, and it was agreed the University had the information on its computer systems.
• Authority: the Tribunal doubted the approach in The Scottish Ministers v The Scottish Information Commissioner [2023] CSIH 46 and Ian Graham v The Scottish Information Commissioner [2019] CSIH 57 to the extent those cases framed the issue in terms of a sufficient/rational connection or public authority interest.
• Sanctions/export-control angle: no sanctions or export-control issue is addressed in the judgment; its relevance is procedural and institutional, concerning how communications linked to external board roles are treated under access-to-information law.

Why it matters

For national-security and sanctions-sensitive organisations, the case narrows how FOIA-style access arguments are assessed where a public body’s systems contain material generated in an external representative or board capacity. It reinforces that possession on public systems does not, by itself, mean the authority holds the material for its own purposes.

Implications

Public authorities and universities can rely on section 3(2)(a) where requested material is held solely on behalf of a third party or in an external role, but they should be prepared to prove the nature of that relationship factually. For litigants, the decision suggests the stronger challenge is to the evidence about whose behalf the information is held, rather than to mere physical custody or system location.