Newslink January 2022
Motor Schools Association of Great Britain, driving instructors, ADIs, driver training and testing, road safety
Motor Schools Association of Great Britain, driving instructors, ADIs, driver training and testing, road safety
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
For all the latest news, see www.msagb.com<br />
section 32 after the relevant court<br />
proceedings have concluded.<br />
‘Section 32 serves to preserve the<br />
courts control over court records. There<br />
are separate and specific information<br />
access regimes for disclosing court and<br />
tribunal records, the section 32<br />
exemption ensure that those regimes<br />
are not superseded by the FOIA.<br />
‘Even if a document may have been<br />
made public it ceases to be a public<br />
record after the hearing and then<br />
becomes protected by section 32.<br />
Section 32 can apply even if that same<br />
information is later used for another<br />
purpose (eg DVSA internal correspondence).<br />
‘Section 32 is an absolute exemption<br />
and there is no duty to consider the<br />
public interest test. Further information<br />
on section 32 of the FoIA can be<br />
accessed via the following link:<br />
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/<br />
ukpga/2000/36/section/32<br />
So basically, a court case has been<br />
heard and the details of it are now buried<br />
under a Section 32 exemption which<br />
denies the public from knowing what’s<br />
been going on. It means that we have<br />
reached a dead-end – ish. There is a way<br />
round this particular wall but it is<br />
complex, time consuming and likely to<br />
result in more than one headache as we<br />
crash into another obstacle built by civil<br />
service bureaucracy and obstinence.<br />
It has to be said that this is scandalous<br />
and flies in the face of the basic principal<br />
of the FOI, which is that the public<br />
deserves to know what governments<br />
spend their money on. When it is spent<br />
incorrectly, we deserve to know why. It<br />
could well be that the case brought by<br />
DVSA and VCA looked, on paper, to have<br />
considerable merit; that it deserved its<br />
day in court. That it failed is one of those<br />
things... However, it would be nice to<br />
know why it failed, what the case<br />
covered and who was responsible.<br />
Reading between the lines it’s easy to<br />
assume that it has nothing to do with the<br />
ADI world; if you like, it’s not the ‘DSA’<br />
part of the DVSA. The linkage with VCA<br />
seems to rule this out.<br />
That would lead to it possibly being<br />
linked to something involving vehicle<br />
imports, parts type approval, illegal parts<br />
or vehicle emissions. I’ll leave it up to<br />
you, dear reader, to fill in your own<br />
blanks.<br />
As for us, we have one or two more<br />
routes to follow through the maze that is<br />
the civil service archives, and we’ll have<br />
a wander down those on your behalf.<br />
Whether we’ll find the answers we’re<br />
looking for is another matter. We’ll make<br />
sure to let you know, though.<br />
NEWSLINK n JANUARY <strong>2022</strong><br />
17