Information Commissioner orders fresh response over £2.2 million King William’s College FOI

Department for Enterprise told to re-process request after blanket confidentiality exemption ruled inappropriate

The Isle of Man Information Commissioner (ICO) has upheld a complaint against the Department for Enterprise (DfE) over its handling of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request concerning public funding for King William’s College.

In a Decision Notice dated 10 February 2026, the Commissioner found the Department was not justified in refusing to provide any of the requested information and has ordered it to issue a new response within 30 days .

The original request, made in May 2025, sought detailed information about due diligence carried out by the Department in relation to a grant or loan of around £2.2 million of taxpayers’ money to King William’s College (KWC), an independent boarding and day school.

The request covered scrutiny of directors’ reports, consolidated financial statements, auditor’s reports, cashflow analysis and correspondence, as well as evidence supporting claims made by the College about its contribution to the Island’s economy .

The Department initially extended the statutory response period twice before refusing the request in full, relying on section 26 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015, which exempts information provided in confidence .

Following an internal review, DfE maintained the confidentiality exemption and also referred to section 8 of the Act, stating it was not required to “create or derive” information .

However, after examining 54 emails and 141 documents supplied by the Department during the investigation, the Commissioner concluded that applying a blanket exemption to all the requested material was inappropriate .

While some information may have been supplied in confidence by the College, the Commissioner found that much of the material - including DfE’s own internal scrutiny and correspondence - would not fall within the scope of section 26, which applies only to information obtained from another person .

The Decision Notice states that if a public authority creates a document itself, even if it discusses a third party, it does not qualify as information “obtained from another person” for the purposes of the exemption .

The ICO also raised concerns about the way the request was handled.

These included:

• No evidence that each withheld document had been individually assessed before the exemption was applied
• Questionable use of time extensions, including one apparently linked to staff absence, despite the fact that extensions under section 13 can only be used when considering qualified exemptions
• No clear evidence of the searches undertaken to identify all relevant information
• No evidence that the applicant had been offered advice and assistance to refine the request before a practical refusal reason was cited

The Commissioner noted that some elements of the request - such as dates of receipt of financial documents - could potentially have been answered without complex analysis .

The ICO has ordered DfE to either disclose the requested information or issue a fresh refusal notice that complies with section 17 of the Act within 30 days of the Decision Notice.