A journalist has won a two-and-a-half-year Freedom of Information fight after representing herself in a court battle against a public body.

The Upper Tier Tribunal has ruled in favour of Claire Miller, deputy head of data journalism at Reach plc, after a bid by the Information Commissioner’s Office to block a request she had made.

Cardiff-based Claire, pictured, had been attempting to find out statistics on homelessness from every local authority in England, dating from 2009 to 2012, from the government department previously known as the Department for Communities and Local Government.

But her request, made in December 2015, was refused on the grounds that it was not in the public interest to release the relevant files because it had to redact personal information in order to prevent individuals from being identified.

Both an internal review and an appeal to the ICO by Claire were rejected, but she then successfully appealed the decision notice to the First Tier Tribunal, arguing that it would be impossible for anyone to identify someone from the data unless they already had very detailed knowledge of a person’s homelessness application, something that becomes more remote due to the passage of time since the application would have been made.

The ICO then appealed this decision to the Upper Tier Tribunal in relation to Section 40, arguing that the FTT had failed to apply the proper legal test when considering whether or not the data was personal information as defined in the Data Protection Act.

After a hearing at which Claire argued her case against a barrister representing the ICO, the UTT found in her favour last month, with Judge Kate Markus QC ruling the chance of a member of the public being able to identify a household and its members from the data was “so remote as to be negligible”.

In coming to her findings, Judge Markus added neither DCLG or the ICO had “advanced any possible basis on which individuals could be identified from the data”.

In a written judgement, she concluded: “Moreover, it is quite fantastical to suppose that, several years later, there would be anyone sufficiently motivated to try to identify an individual to which the data related.

“The information… is not such as is likely to attract those with investigative skills, such as a journalist, to attempt to identify individuals.”

Claire told HTFP: “This decision is a reminder that public bodies should go through the process of assessing whether the information is actually personal data and identifiable no matter how small the numbers are.

“Small numbers are not automatically identifiable and there are times when the information requested should be released through FoI.

“It’s also a good example of why it’s worth appealing FoI refusals, sometimes public bodies err on the side of caution or work from a standard response when a more detailed consideration of the situation may yield a more useful response.”