The Information Rights Tribunal has reminded parties that it does not have powers to issue general guidance to public bodies about the handling of data. Dismissing an appeal in Ian Hall v The Information Commissioner, tribunal judge Clare Goodman declined to make a judgment 'in the broader context' of requests for public sector information. 

The tribunal was deciding an appeal over the refusal of local planning authorities to make available raw data required to map designated conservation areas. The so-called spatial datasets had been requested by Ian Hall as part of a 'pro bono open data project' to publish a national dataset of conservation areas. 

In rejecting the request, Hertfordshire County Council highlighted several legal pitfalls lying in the way of schemes to re-use data collected by public bodies as part of their duties, despite successive governments' 'open data' promises.  

Most local planning authorities publish spatial datasets of their designated conservation areas, of which there are about 10,000 in England. The appellant in Hall runs a 'pro bono open data project' to publish a national dataset, to be made available for reuse under an Open Government Licence (OGL). He requested information from Hertfordshire County Council's consolidated dataset incorporating boundary data for conservation areas designated by district councils. 

In its initial refusal, according to the judgment, the county said it could not supply the data because it contained Ordnance Survey intellectual property. Following a complaint to the information commissioner, the council refused on the grounds that the data was already available on a website run by Historic England, albeit with restrictions on re-use. 

On appeal, Hall said that the Historic England dataset was not adequate. He also said the information commissioner had failed to consider the county's failure to comply with the 2015 Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations which require 'public task' data to be made available. 

However the tribunal concluded that supplying a consolidated spatial dataset of conservation area boundaries falls outside the county's public task, and therefore the regulations do not apply. 

On the appellant's request for the case to be seen in the 'broader context' to avoid delay and expense in obtaining data in future, the judgment concludes. 'This is not the tribunal's role... It is not our role to issue general guidance as requested by the appellant.'