FOI release

Response: Declarations of interest for Matt Clifford and Saul Klein

Published 10 October 2024

Reference number	FOI2024-00388
Date of request	12 September 2024
Date of response	10 October 2024
Outcome	Information partially disclosed

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):

This is an FOI request about 2 shareholders in Faculty Science who also hold positions in DSIT and its agencies: Saul Klein and Matt Clifford. The department has previously stated that: “Both Matt Clifford and Saul Klein have declared all relevant conflicts of interest with the Department’s permanent secretary, as is required with such appointments”.

1. I am writing to request full copies of a) Mr Klein and b) Mr Clifford’s interest declarations. In Mr Clifford’s case, please provide copies of declarations filed for his role role for the i. AI Safety Institute and the ii. AI Opportunities Action Plan.

2. I am also writing to request copies of correspondence related to Mr Klein and Mr Clifford’s declarations between the Permanent Secretary and (a) Mr Klein - generated in March and April 2023 only, (b) Mr Clifford - generated in July and August 2024 only.

3. [The requestor clarified that they wanted us to ignore this question]

4. The terms of reference for the AI opportunities Action Plan states that “Officials will work with Matt Clifford to identify and address any potential conflicts of interest that may arise”. Please state a) how many potential conflicts were identified and b) how these were addressed.

Our response

Please find our responses to each of your questions below:

Question 1:

We have withheld Saul Klein and Matt Clifford’s declarations of interest under section 21 of FOIA as this information is accessible to you by other means.

You can access Saul Klein’s declaration in the department’s annual report and accounts for the year ending 31 March 2024 on page 47 of the report.

Recognising the wider public interest in Matt Clifford’s declaration as an appointee of the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology we have today published this information on GOV.UK. You can access Matt Clifford’s declaration on GOV.UK.

Because the information is already reasonably accessible to you, technically it is withheld under section 21 of the FOIA. Section 21 states:

(1) Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.

Section 21(1) is an absolute exemption under the FOIA therefore we are not required to conduct a public interest test when withholding this information.

Please note that Matt Clifford’s published declaration of interest does not include some other sensitive personal information which we have withheld under section 40(2) of the FOIA.

Question 2:

No information is held in relation to your request for correspondence between the Permanent Secretary and Saul Klein relating to his declaration of interest.

Correspondence between the Permanent Secretary and Matt Clifford (in the form of an appointment letter and other appointment documentation) is set out in Annex A. We have withheld some personal information through redactions under section 40(2) of the FOIA.

Question 3:

You clarified that you did not wish to receive a response to this question.

Question 4:

The department does not hold a calculated total of the number of conflicts of interest identified following his declaration of interest for his role as the Lead Reviewer of the AI Opportunities Action Plan. Instead, the Permanent Secretary agreed comprehensive and robust mitigations to manage any potential, perceived or actual conflicts of interest which could have arisen from Matthew’s role as the Lead Reviewer; these are set out in Section 11 of Matthew’s terms and conditions of appointment in Annex A.

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. This information includes:

• The names and contact information of officials who are not senior civil servants
• The personal address of an individual
• The value of an individual’s shareholdings
• The banking arrangements of an individual

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.

We are required to assess whether we have a lawful basis under data protection legislation to disclose third-party personal data to a member of the public. We have therefore completed a legitimate interest assessment in Annex B.