The Department for Education has been told by the Information Commissioner that it must reveal the names, location and religious affiliation of all organisations that apply to open free schools. 

The Information Commissioner ruled that due to the “substantial” public funds which are used in the free schools programme there is enough public interest to reveal who the applicants are.

The full ruling can be found here 

The National Secular Society write:

A tribunal has ruled that the Department for Education (DfE) must publish the names, location and religious affiliation, if any, of all organisations that apply to open free schools.

The Information Tribunal dismissed an appeal by the DfE to a ruling by the Information Commissioner’s office that the DfE must publish a list of all proposals to establish Free Schools. Freedom of information requests for the information were made in June 2011 by the Guardiannewspaper, the Association of Colleges and the British Humanist Association (BHA).

You can read the full story here.

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.