This has happened on a couple of other occasions, notably the recent decision requiring Derry Council to publish details of their arrangements with Ryanair. Did the BBC present any evidence at all about whether specific parts of the minutes should be confidential, or did they simply try to protect the whole lot? If it’s the latter, then you can see that there is a point in asking them whether there are any specific elements of the minutes where the public interest favours non-disclosure, even though the public interest favours publishing the majority. Clearly, if the BBC is to make an argument about specific parts, this might involve telling the Tribunal what those parts cover, and this would have to be confidential, otherwise it would defeat the point of making the submissions in teh first place.

Unfortunately, the legalistic nature of the ruling is about par for the course. This is partly because of the legal involvement, but also because FoI is still relatively new, and the Tribunal has to lay down fairly extensively reasoned ground-rules, not only for itself and the Commissioner to follow in the future, but also in case its decisions get challenged in the High Court.