The government failed to disclose important information about its licensing agreement for the Liverpool Ferry Terminal, an Information Commissioner report has found.
Redacted information includes monthly licence and insurance fees.
A Freedom of Information request was submitted to the Department of Infrastructure in March asking for the terminal’s operating costs, income and licence agreement.
The applicant was not satisfied with the DoI’s original response in April.
An internal review by the department upheld this response before the applicant complained to the Information Commissioner in June.
Errors Found
The Information Commissioner partially upheld the complaint, finding that the DoI failed to provide sufficient explanation for redacting financial information in its licensing agreement for the terminal.
The DoI argued that disclosing this information would harm its commercial relationship with the licensee.
The report challenged this, stating: “Given that the licensee is a government-owned, arm’s-length company operating without direct competition, the Information Commissioner found no evidence of genuine commercial sensitivity or a public interest justification for keeping the information secret, particularly for the commencement dates of the contract.”
The DoI must now either disclose the redacted information or provide stronger reasoning for keeping it redacted.
The report adds to the list of controversies that surround the terminal which Manx.News has covered in depth here.
Not All Bad
The complaint was only partially upheld as the Information Commissioner was satisfied with most of the information disclosed.
Information about operating costs was provided in full.
The DoI stated it did not hold or could not find part of the information regarding income generated by the terminal. The Information Commissioner report was satisfied with this explanation.
The report was also satisfied with the DoI’s reasoning for withholding the net cost or profit of the terminal on the grounds that this would undermine its economic and commercial interests.
For more, read the full report here. You can also find the original redacted licence agreement for the terminal here.