illegally operated online legal aid calculator

Summary

A request was made for internal documents and user statistics regarding the Isle of Man's online legal aid calculator, alleging it caused miscarriages of justice. The Treasury responded with partial information, providing daily pageview statistics for early 2023 and Google Analytics data for early 2024, while withholding the requested internal legislative analysis and correspondence.

Key Facts

• The request was received on 2024-04-23 and amended on 2024-06-18.
• The outcome was determined on 2024-07-08 as 'Some information sent but part exempt'.
• The response included 18 pages across 3 documents.
• Daily pageview data for the calculator was provided for January through July 2023.
• Google Analytics data covering January to June 2024 was included in the response.

Data Disclosed

• 1,750 total pageviews for /civil-legal-aid-calculator
• 2024-04-23
• 2024-07-08
• 18 pages
• 3 documents
• Jan 1 - Jun 12, 2024
• 1,702 views
• 116 users
• 1.41 views per user
• 54s average engagement time

Original Request

Please supply all information related to legislation analysis, discussions, reports, filenotes, meeting minutes, emails, direct messages, text messages, software specification and any external procurement documents of the online legal aid eligibility calculator. I note that the online service amounts to an automated decision making process in that almost all users would have wrongly accepted an incorrectly calculated decision "as is" in good faith as part of an informed decision to not fight an injustice at all or abandon an existing case. It is inevitable that the automated decision making process subject to GDPR oversight led to an unquantified number of miscarriages of justice in a very broken legal system. Please supply user statistics by month or if not by year (1) calculation started but unfinished (2) calculation finished in either the most recent 3 financial years or 3 calendar years adequate to quantify the scale of the issue in the first instance or alternatively please supply what data is available with a longer timeline with adequate explanatory notes.

Data Tables (2)

Full Response Text

Appendix 1

Page Pageviews /civil-legal-aid-calculator 1,750 Day Index Pageviews 01/01/2023 2 02/01/2023 2 03/01/2023 12 04/01/2023 5 05/01/2023 14 06/01/2023 12 07/01/2023 1 08/01/2023 6 09/01/2023 11 10/01/2023 8 11/01/2023 7 12/01/2023 18 13/01/2023 18 14/01/2023 4 15/01/2023 6 16/01/2023 12 17/01/2023 9 18/01/2023 11 19/01/2023 13 20/01/2023 7 21/01/2023 2 22/01/2023 2 23/01/2023 8 24/01/2023 14 25/01/2023 9 26/01/2023 12 27/01/2023 16 28/01/2023 5 29/01/2023 2 30/01/2023 12 31/01/2023 17 01/02/2023 8 02/02/2023 11 03/02/2023 9 04/02/2023 3 05/02/2023 13 06/02/2023 9 07/02/2023 7 08/02/2023 14 09/02/2023 6 10/02/2023 28 11/02/2023 10 12/02/2023 4 13/02/2023 7 14/02/2023 10 15/02/2023 9 Appendix 2 16/02/2023 10 17/02/2023 5 18/02/2023 3 19/02/2023 3 20/02/2023 8 21/02/2023 9 22/02/2023 13 23/02/2023 16 24/02/2023 6 25/02/2023 1 26/02/2023 13 27/02/2023 11 28/02/2023 13 01/03/2023 19 02/03/2023 4 03/03/2023 10 04/03/2023 1 05/03/2023 6 06/03/2023 10 07/03/2023 6 08/03/2023 3 09/03/2023 12 10/03/2023 5 11/03/2023 1 12/03/2023 4 13/03/2023 10 14/03/2023 25 15/03/2023 8 16/03/2023 6 17/03/2023 10 18/03/2023 5 19/03/2023 10 20/03/2023 6 21/03/2023 14 22/03/2023 11 23/03/2023 4 24/03/2023 9 25/03/2023 3 26/03/2023 1 27/03/2023 13 28/03/2023 7 29/03/2023 12 30/03/2023 13 31/03/2023 9 01/04/2023 4 02/04/2023 2 03/04/2023 5 04/04/2023 8 05/04/2023 13 06/04/2023 23 07/04/2023 9 08/04/2023 1 09/04/2023 3 10/04/2023 9 11/04/2023 24 12/04/2023 12 13/04/2023 14 14/04/2023 5 15/04/2023 1 16/04/2023 5 17/04/2023 6 18/04/2023 5 19/04/2023 15 20/04/2023 29 21/04/2023 26 22/04/2023 6 23/04/2023 8 24/04/2023 20 25/04/2023 7 26/04/2023 14 27/04/2023 13 28/04/2023 6 29/04/2023 1 30/04/2023 1 01/05/2023 5 02/05/2023 6 03/05/2023 7 04/05/2023 6 05/05/2023 12 06/05/2023 5 07/05/2023 7 08/05/2023 10 09/05/2023 9 10/05/2023 7 11/05/2023 7 12/05/2023 4 13/05/2023 5 14/05/2023 2 15/05/2023 8 16/05/2023 15 17/05/2023 11 18/05/2023 10 19/05/2023 4 20/05/2023 12 21/05/2023 3 22/05/2023 8 23/05/2023 18 24/05/2023 7 25/05/2023 10 26/05/2023 15 27/05/2023 3 28/05/2023 1 29/05/2023 3 30/05/2023 4 31/05/2023 8 01/06/2023 23 02/06/2023 11 03/06/2023 1 04/06/2023 3 05/06/2023 6 06/06/2023 12 07/06/2023 13 08/06/2023 7 09/06/2023 2 10/06/2023 3 11/06/2023 5 12/06/2023 11 13/06/2023 15 14/06/2023 10 15/06/2023 13 16/06/2023 13 17/06/2023 6 18/06/2023 4 19/06/2023 20 20/06/2023 15 21/06/2023 5 22/06/2023 10 23/06/2023 3 24/06/2023 0 25/06/2023 3 26/06/2023 12 27/06/2023 13 28/06/2023 16 29/06/2023 12 30/06/2023 10 01/07/2023 2 02/07/2023 5 03/07/2023 10 04/07/2023 11 05/07/2023 12 06/07/2023 17 07/07/2023 12 08/07/2023 0 09/07/2023 3 10/07/2023 13 11/07/2023 18 12/07/2023 19 13/07/2023 9 14/07/2023 11 15/07/2023 4 16/07/2023 7 Online Services - LIVE Online Services - GA4  Analytics launch © 2024 Google | Analytics home | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Views by Page path and screen class over time Day 01 Jan 01 Feb 01 Mar 01 Apr 01 May 01 Jun 0 10 20 30 Views by Page path and screen class /civil-legal-aid-ca lculator/ 0 500 Rows per page: 1-4 of 4 700 100% of total 498 100% of total 1.41 Avg 0% 54s Avg 0% 1,702 100% of total 0.00 £0.00 116 94 1.23 37s 290 0.00 £0.00 245 175 1.40 52s 593 0.00 £0.00 264 192 1.38 48s 640 0.00 £0.00 75 54 1.39 1m 38s 179 0.00 £0.00 Search… search 10 Views Users Views per user Average engagement time Event count arrow_drop_down All events Key events arrow_drop_down All events Total revenue feedback Go to report arrow_drop_down Page path and screen class arrow_drop_down clear Month 1 /civil-legal-aid-calculator/ 03 2 /civil-legal-aid-calculator/ 04 3 /civil-legal-aid-calculator/ 05 4 /civil-legal-aid-calculator/ 06 Send feedback Add comparison  Pages and screens: Page path and screen class check_circle arrow_drop_down filter_alt A All Users arrow_drop_down Page path and screen clas… close This year (Jan – Today) Jan 1 - Jun 12, 2024

Freedom of Information
Seyrsnys Fysseree

The Treasury Government Office,
Douglas Isle of Man, IM1 3PU

Telephone: (01624) 685605 Email: FOI.Treasury@gov.im

Government Website: www.gov.im

Our ref: 3818133 8 July 2024

Dear ###,

We write further to your request, received 23 April 2024 an amended on 18 June 2024, which states (numbering added by Treasury):

"1) Please supply all information related to legislation analysis, discussions, reports, filenotes, meeting minutes, emails, direct messages, text messages, software specification and any external procurement documents of the online legal aid eligibility calculator.

I note that the online service amounts to an automated decision making process in that almost all users would have wrongly accepted an incorrectly calculated decision "as is" in good faith as part of an informed decision to not fight an injustice at all or abandon an existing case. It is inevitable that the automated decision making process subject to GDPR oversight led to an unquantified number of miscarriages of justice in a very broken legal system.

2) Please supply user statistics by month or if not by year (1) calculation started but unfinished (2) calculation finished in either the most recent 3 financial years or 3 calendar years adequate to quantify the scale of the issue in the first instance or alternatively please supply what data is available with a longer timeline with adequate explanatory notes."

Our response to your request is as follows:

1) Information related to the online Legal Aid eligibility calculator

Please find enclosed Appendix 1 which includes communication with Government Technology Services in relation to the online Legal Aid eligibility calculator.

Appendix 1 includes personal information and we have concluded that the information is absolutely exempt from disclosure under section 25(2) of the Act (absolutely exempt personal information).

The information to which this exemption applies includes names and contact details of Treasury officers, as well as a name of a Government Technology Services officer. The reasons why this exemption applies are that:

• The Treasury is satisfied that the information amounts to personal data of which you are not the data subject; and
• The Treasury is satisfied that disclosure of the information would contravene one of the data protection principles as set out at Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation as it applies in the Isle of Man pursuant to the Data Protection (Application of GDPR) Order 2018, namely that the Treasury can only disclose the information where it would be fair, lawful and meet of the conditions for lawful process.

We would like to provide advice and assistance regarding the statement about the online service amounting to an automated decision making process.

Automated decision making is defined on the UK Information Commissioner's website as “the process of making a decision by automated means without any human involvement”. In addition to this the Civil legal Aid eligibility calculator webpage explains “This online calculator can provide an indication as to whether you are likely to pass the financial test in order to be granted legal aid on the Isle of Man. It is only a portion of the assessment to determine if you qualify for legal aid. If you decide to proceed with an application for civil legal aid a full assessment of your financial situation will be required and this will be carried out by the Legal Aid Office. In order to facilitate this assessment you will be required to submit comprehensive financial evidence (e.g. banks statements, pay slips etc).”

Therefore we can confirm that applications for Civil Legal Aid are not processed through automated means.

2) Statistics related to the online Legal Aid eligibility calculator

As previously advised the Treasury does not hold or cannot, after taking reasonable steps to do so, find some of the information that you have requested for this part of your request. Therefore we need to apply a practical refusal reason to your request under section 11(3)(a) of the Act (information not held). The reasons for this is because there are no statistics relating to the use of the online Legal Aid Calculator, due to no mechanisms currently being in place to track if a calculation has been started but not finished or if the calculation has been started and finished.

However, there is some information held which provides limited statistics on the number of views of the webpage where the online Legal Aid Calculator is located. Please note the statistics only relate to the number of times the webpage has been viewed and does not equate to a human using the online Legal Aid calculator.

Following your amended Freedom of Information request we have enclosed Appendix 2 which shows when the webpage was viewed between 1 January 2023 and 16 July 2023 and between March 2024 and June 2024.

The information in Appendix 2 is from Google Analytics and dates back to when the information was first collected in January 2023. Later that year the version used

became unsupported and as a result the statistics were no longer being recorded from July 2023. The version was then updated earlier this year, which explains why they is a gap in the statistics from July 2023 until March 2024.

Please quote the reference number 3818133 in any future communications.

Your right to request a review

If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post.

An electronic version of our complaint form can be found by going to our website at https://services.gov.im/freedom-of-information/Review . If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on; 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.

I will now close your request as of this date.