CEO appointment letters

Request

1. Please can you provide any communication with reference to the appointment of any person who is placed in charge of the organisation where there may be a conflict of interest mentioned.
2. Please can you provide the last three appointment letters of the person(s) in charge of the National Archives.

Outcome

Some information provided.

Response

1. Please can you provide any communication with reference to the appointment of any person who is placed in charge of the organisation where there may be a conflict of interest mentioned.

Information not held.

Please note that the appointment of the Chief Executive and Keeper of The National Archives is made by our sponsor department. The National Archives' current sponsor department is the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS).

2. Please can you provide the last three appointment letters of the person (s) in charge of the National Archives.

Redacted PDFs of documentation held regarding the appointment letters of the CEO/Keeper of the National Archives are available upon request. Please contact our team and include the reference CAS-319754.

Both the Chief Executive and Keeper and the Principal Accounting Officer of The National Archives are posts held by the same person. The Chief Executive is appointed by HM Treasury to be Principal Accounting Officer.

This concludes our response to your request.

Annexe

Exemptions applied

Section 40(2): Personal Information where the applicant is not the data subject

Section 40 exempts personal information about a ‘third party’ (someone other than the requester), if revealing it would breach the terms of Data Protection Legislation. Data Protection Legislation prevents personal information from release if it would be unfair or at odds with the reason why it was collected, or where the subject had officially served notice that releasing it would cause them damage or distress. Personal information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner as set out by Art. 5 of the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

In this case the exemption applies because the requested material contains the personal and the sensitive personal information of a number of identified individuals assumed still to be living. These individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy which would not include the release of this information into the public domain by The National Archives during their lifetime. To do so would be likely to cause damage and/or distress and would be a breach of the first data protection principle, which is concerned with the fair, lawful and transparent processing of information of this kind.

Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found on the ICO website.