Response: Travel expenses for Rosalind Campion
Published 30 September 2024
© Crown copyright 2024
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi2024-00348-travel-expenses-for-rosalind-campion/response-travel-expenses-for-rosalind-campion
| Reference number | FOI2024-00348 |
|---|---|
| Date of request | 5 September 2024 |
| Date of response | 30 September 2024 |
| Outcome | Information disclosed |
Request for information
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the department) received the following request for information which we responded to under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA):
Please provide a breakdown of the expenses of the trip and expenses of Rosalind Campion between January 7 and January 10 2024 to the JPM conference where £20,589.80 was spent. It can be found at this link.
Please provide a daily report of how £20,589.80 was spent by the individual over three days. I would like to see receipt details accounting for the total expenditure.
Our response
We can confirm that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the department) does hold the information in scope of your request, including: the breakdown of the expenses of the trip, the expenses of Rosalind Campion for the aforementioned dates (please see Annex A) and the receipts detailing the expenditure (please see Annex B1, B2 and B3). Please note that the expenses were approved in line with the department’s policy.
Please note that the figure of £20,589.90 was published in error in our transparency return for the expenses of senior officials in the department. This is because the original ticket booked for Rosalind to travel between London and San Francisco was cancelled and rebooked for a different date, but this cancellation and the subsequent refund of the cost of the ticket was not deducted from the amount disclosed in transparency reporting. Our published transparency return will be corrected on GOV.UK shortly, showing the total cost to DSIT of £9,507.91.
Further background
JP Morgan Healthcare week (“JPM week”) is the largest and most senior global gathering of the life sciences industry attracting thousands of executives and investors in the sector. The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference itself is an invite-only event with a finance-focus.
The event is an important opportunity for the UK Government to engage and strengthen its relationships with the global life sciences sector. Rosalind attended business networking events to showcase the UK’s life sciences sector. Rosalind had around 20 additional meetings with life sciences companies to discuss opportunities to invest and expand their activities in the UK.
Rosalind flew from London to San Francisco and back on a business class flight in accordance with the department’s expenses policy which permits purchasing business class tickets if a flight is greater than 5.5 hours long. This policy reduces the impact of long-haul travel and the symptoms of jetlag so that senior leaders can be effective immediately when they arrive at their destination. Please note that Rosalind attended her first engagement at the conference immediately after her arrival in San Francisco.
Section 40(2): Personal data of third parties
Some of the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) because of the condition at section 40(3A) of the FOIA.
Section 40(2) and (40(3A) state:
(2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if-
(a) it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1), and
(b) the first, second or third condition below is satisfied.
(3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act-
(a) would contravene any of the data protection principles, or
(b) would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were disregarded.
The department has obligations under data protection legislation, and in law generally, to protect personal data. This exempts personal data from release if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. Release would breach the first data protection principle since it would be unlawful and unfair to disclose the information.
As section 40 is an absolute exemption, the department is not required to carry out a public interest test.