abortions that have legally taken place on the Isle of Man

Summary

A request for the total number of legal abortions on the Isle of Man since October 2011 was initially refused by mistake, but an internal review overruled the decision and disclosed the figure.

Key Facts

• The Department of Health and Social Care initially refused the request by mistakenly citing a previous FOI case regarding individual yearly figures.
• An internal review conducted by Paul Edge overruled the original refusal and exemption application.
• The Department admitted to failing to respond within the statutory 28-day deadline due to process failures.
• The total number of abortions legally performed since the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act came into effect is 39.
• The request covered the period from 11 October 2011 to the time of the review in early 2018.

Data Disclosed

• 39
• 11 October 2011
• 28 days
• 30 days
• 29 January 2018
• 02 October 2017
• 08 September 2017
• IM102084i
• IM105284i
• IM114-924i
• IM118-754i

Exemptions Cited

• Personally identifiable information (initially cited for a different request regarding individual yearly figures, later overruled for the total count request)

Original Request

How many abortions have legally taken place on the Isle of Man, in every year since the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act came into effect

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Department of Health and Social Care Rheynn Slaynt as Kiarail y Theay Page 1 of 3 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 Chief Executive: Malcolm Couch

Freedom of Information Team DHSC Digital Cronk Coar Strang IM4 4RJ Tel: Email: Website: Date: Original FOI Reference: Internal Review Reference: (01624) 642621 foi.dhsc@gov.im www.gov.im/dhsc 5th February 201805 February 2018 IM114-924i IM118-754i

INTERNAL REVIEW - REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2015 (“the Act”) I write in reference to your request dated 29 January 2018 for an internal review application pursuant to s 42 of the Act regarding the response disclosed to your Freedom of Information request, reference number FOI 114-924i, dated 29 January 2018. An internal review of the response to your application has now been completed by an independent officer, Paul Edge, Head of Business Information Management who was not involved in the original request. For ease, I have separated each part of your internal review questions, providing factual clarification as appropriate. You requested clarification in regards to the following: Original FOI Question 01: “In total, how many abortions have legally taken place on the Isle of Man under the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act since 11 October 2011?” Internal Review Request: In my request, I asked for the TOTAL number of abortions carried over a period of around 6 years, and was told the information was already published at: https://www.gov.im/aboutthegovernment/freedomofinformation/freedomofinformationresponses/ In the department's response to my request, it states: "All of the information that you have requests [sic] is available from", when the information is most certainly not there.
The only request dealing with the same subject is: https://www.gov.im/media/1359960/numberofabortionstakensinceterminationofpregnancyinternalr eview.
Page 2 of 3 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 That FOI request (IM102084i, with a review IM105284i) asked for individual figures for each year and so was refused on the grounds it contains personally identifiable information. The information I requested is not available. It is also noteworthy that the response from the DHSC took at least 30 days, outside the statutory response time of 28 days. The request was made on December 29, 2017 and the response was sent on January 29, 2018.” Internal Reviewer - Findings: Upon review I find that the FOI Team had mistakenly referred to a previous FOI request (IM102084i) Therefore, I have overruled the original response and application of exemption. Your original question was: “In total, how many abortions have legally taken place on the Isle of Man under the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act since 11 October 2011?” The Department fully adheres to the principles of Freedom of Information, public accountability, openness and transparency, therefore the Department is pleased to provide an answer to your question below:
The total number of abortions since 11 October 2011 is 39. With respect to point 2, I can advise that there is no valid reason why this request went past the statutory processing period. My review has identified points at which the standard process for FOI requests was not followed both within the specific service area that held the information and the FOI Team administering the FOI process, and points at which escalation of issues did not occur, leading to a failure to respond within the appropriate deadline.
I have made a number of recommendations to strengthen how the system responds so that there is no reoccurrence of this situation and apologise for any inconvenience. Your right to request a review If you are unhappy with this response to your Freedom of Information Internal Review request, under s42(1) of the Act you have the right to apply to the Isle of Man Information Commissioner for a review of either our response or any decisions and/or justification we have used if there was a refusal to supply information. You can contact the Information Commissioner at: Isle of Man Information Commissioner PO Box 69 Douglas Isle of Man IM99 1EQ Telephone: 01642 693260 Email: ask@inforights.im Page 3 of 3 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 Should you then wish to appeal against the Commissioner’s decision, there is a right of appeal to the High Court on a point of law only. Yours Sincerely Paul Edge QCB Head of Business Information Management
DHSC Digital - Department of Health and Social Care

Department of Health and Social Care

Rheynn Slaynt as Kiarail y Theay

Page 1 of 4 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01

Chief Executive: Malcolm Couch

Freedom of Information Team Department of Health & Social Care Chief Executive’s Office Crookall House Demesne Road Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 3QA Tel: Email: Website: Date: Original FOI Reference: Internal Review Reference: (01624) 642621 foi.dhsc@gov.im www.gov.im/dhsc 19 December 2017 IM102-084i IM105-284i Dear

REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2015 (“the Act”) I write in reference to your request dated 02 October 2017 for an internal review application pursuant to s 42 of the Act regarding the response disclosed to your Freedom of Information request, reference number IM102-084i dated 08 September 2017. You requested clarification in regards to the following: “How many abortions have legally taken place on the Isle of Man, in every year since the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act came into effect? Please put the figures into a spreadsheet according to specific years.” An internal review of the response to your application has now been completed by an independent officer Sami-Jaine Martin who was not involved in the original request. Internal Review Response For ease, I have separated each part of your internal review questions, providing factual clarification as appropriate. However, before considering these points I will first outline the basic data protection definitions and principles that I will refer to within my response: Personal Data: The Data Protection Act 2002 (DPA) defines personal data as data “which relate to a living individual who can be identified –
a) from those data b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual. In addition, Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data - the directive upon which the Island’s DPA was based - defines personal data as: “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, a data subject, an identifiable person being one who can be identified directly or

Page 2 of 4 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number, or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.” Sensitive Personal Data: The DPA also defines sensitive personal data as “personal data consisting of information as to–
e) [in this case] his physical or mental health condition Data Protection Principles: There are eight principles addressed in Schedule 1 of the DPA. The first states: “Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless — (a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and (b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.”

Internal Review Request Point 01: “The Department of Health and Social Care responded to my request, on the basis that mentioning the numbers of abortions per year "might enable identification of individuals". It seems to me that this is simply and obviously not the case. There are absolutely no discernible means by which a mere figure of below 10 a year could possibly enable the identification of any individual who has had an abortion in an Island of 85,000 people, given the total lack of any further context for those figures. This information therefore clearly does not fall into the realm of personal data on its own, and it should thus be open to the public. Internal Reviewers Comments for Point 01: Upon review I find that the response provided by the Department of Health and Social Care and the decision to not publish the requested figures was entirely correct and in-keeping with best practice in relation to handling and publishing small data sets.
When looking at the publishing of any personal or sensitive personal data, the Department (as do other organisations) have to consider two things; can this data be anonymised, where the personal data becomes just “data”; and can individuals be re- identified from the anonymised data, turning the data back into “personal-“ or “sensitive personal data”. Individuals can be identified from data either directly, where someone is explicitly identifiable from a single data source, such as a list including full names; or indirectly identification, where two or more data sources need to be combined for identification to take place. This is a difficult thing to assess; while we would only be disclosing one set of data, we do not know what other data are available to the public that may lead to re-identification. And by allowing for an individual to be identified in the data it published the Department would be contravening the first data protection principle. In this case, data could be anonymised; however, there is an added challenge in this instance: the reduced size of the data set. By the very specific nature and reduced number of the data requested in IM102-084i; it may be possible to directly identify an

Page 3 of 4 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 individual from the data published alone, or in combination with data from another source indirectly identify an individual. And by allowing for an individual to be identified in the data it published the Department would again be contravening the first data protection principle.
This means, even if the data is anonymous, i.e. has no names published with it, if there is a risk that an individual could be identified, particularly with regards to sensitive personal data as with IM102-084i, then we do not disclose the data at all. This is best practice when handling and publishing any small sets of data across Government departments, in the private sector and third sector. Internal Review Request Point 02: “If the UK Department of Health can publish detailed abortion statistics for England and Wales (including figures on certain abortion grounds that are very low relative to the total population of that jurisdiction), then there seems to be no reason why the IOM Government cannot do so also.” Internal Review Request Point 03: “I kindly ask that you please review and correct this policy.” Your request for an internal review requests sight of the Department’s policy on making such decisions; while the Department does not currently have such a policy itself, it does follow best practice akin to that described here in the NHS Guidance for anonymising of health and social care data: content.digital.nhs.uk/media/18876/ 1523202010spec/pdf/1523202010spec.pdf ; and here: content.digital.nhs.uk/media/ 18876/1523202010spec/pdf/1523202010spec.pdf. If you wish to find out more information for handling and publishing small data you may wish to look at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office guidance here: ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1061/anonymisation-code.pdf. For guidance on the use of personal data in Freedom of Information requests, you may wish to look at the UK Information Commissioner’s Office guidance here: ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1061/anonymisation-code.pdf; and here: ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/how-to-disclose-information- safely-removing-personal-data-from-information-requests-and-datasets/2013958/how- to-disclose-information-safely.pdf .

Your right to request a review
If you are unhappy with this response to your Freedom of Information Internal Review request, under s42(1) of the Act you have the right to apply to the Isle of Man Information Commissioner for a review of either our response or any decisions and/or justification we have used if there was a refusal to supply information. You can contact the Information Commissioner at: Isle of Man Information Commissioner PO Box 69 Douglas Isle of Man IM99 1EQ Telephone: 01642 693260 Email: ask@inforights.im Website: https://www.inforights.im/complaint- handling/how-to-make-a-complaint-to-the- information-commissioner/freedom-of- information-complaints/

Page 4 of 4 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 Should you then wish to appeal against the Commissioner’s decision, there is a right of appeal to the High Court on a point of law only. Yours Sincerely

Information Governance Officer | Freedom of Information Coordinator Department of Health and Social Care

Department of Health and Social Care

Rheynn Slaynt as Kiarail y Theay

Page 1 of 2 FOIA/DHSC/rvsd/01 Chief Executive: Malcolm Couch

By email:

Freedom of Information Team Department of Health & Social Care Chief Executive’s Office Crookall House Demesne Road Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 3QA Tel: Email: Website: Date: FOI Reference: (01624) 642621 foi.dhsc@gov.im www.gov.im/dhsc 12 September 2017 IM102-084i Dear

REQUEST UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2015 (“the Act”) Thank you for your request to the Department of Health and Social Care, dated 08 September 2017

Your request You asked for: Question 01: “How many abortions have legally taken place on the Isle of Man, in every year since the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act came into effect?
Please put the figures into a spreadsheet according to specific years.” Response to your request While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested because it is absolutely exempt under sections 25(b)(i) and 25(b)(ii) of the Act (absolutely exempt personal information).
Abortions undertaken under the provisions of the Termination of Pregnancy (Medical Defences) Act 1995 are reported to the Director of Public Health. The Director of Public Health has confirmed that numbers have consistently been fewer than 10 per year and in accordance with standard approaches to publication of small number data which might enable identification of individuals, in line with sections 25(b)(i) and 25(b)(ii), neither the Public Health Directorate nor the Department make public the precise num

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