Am I entitled to information held by the council which refers to me

[pewe]

I recently applied to join a local Parish council who were desperate for concillors to make up their number..

At the meeting where my application was being considered, four of the current six council members voted against approving my application, despite us never having spoken - although they did approve a similar application for someone else they had also never spoken too.

Puzzled by the response I dug a bit deeper and was informed that the reason the four voted against me was because they had received two e-mails from separate individuals condemning my character.
The two who wrote these e-mails were not known to three of the councillors who voted against me, but were known to the fourth - a person with whom I had had a disagreement in the past regarding a non-council related matter.

I have asked the clerk to the council for copies of the e-mails they were sent so I could study the information that had been given to them and on which their decision to publicly vote against my application was based. So far I have not been successful in obtaining a reply other than a suggestion to reapply for the position and wait until the next council meeting for my application to be considered again.

Am I entitled to see the information they have been sent on which they are basing their decision without any discussion with me, and if so, under what precedent or law.

Thanks for any views you care to offer.

[Amethyst]

Subject Access Request Letter

Look up their Data Protection Officer ( likely the clerk ) https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/search/

Once you have formally requested everything under the DPA 2018 and they continue to refuse disclosure you could make a complaint to the ICO.

HOWEVER, these emails seem likely to have been sent through private emails and not be on record (just helped inform the opinion of members of the council who received them ) - but the official request might encourage them to give you more information.

[pewe]

Thanks for the info Amethyst. I will follow your suggestion.
As I understand it the e-mails were sent to the e-mail address for the clerk to the council who then forwarded copies on to each of the councillors 'for information' not expecting them to have affected their decision making as the content was unsubstantiated and therefore 'hearsay'.
According to the council chairman he asked the four who voted against me why they did so and they declined to answer - but the chairman believes that the e-mails had played a part in their decision.

[pewe]

I spoke to the Council clerk yesterday and she explained that under the guidleines she had been given she could not send me copies of the material in question without having received a request in writing, but even then it would take some time to process - so as a helpful compromise she read out the content of the two e-mails to me. She also confirmed that even if I put in an official request they would not be able to tell me who the e-mails were sent by.

This brings me on to my next question.

Both e-mails contained blatant lies about me as well as other comments suggesting I was of undesired character and untrustworthy - with no evidence supplied to verify the statements.
As this information clearly affected my standing in the eyes of councillors to the point of rejecting my application, in my opinion this was clearly defamation of character.
If I am correct and there is a case for defamation of character by these two individuals, could I now, through legal channels, demand details of the individuals from the council so that I could deal with them appropriately ie in court.

[Amethyst]

Get the request for the documents in writing so that you have redacted hard copies. They have to provide them within 30 days. Regardless of her having read them out, get them to print and post copies to you. Send a formal Subject Access Request. Else they may disappear and content/conversations may be denied.

Defamation/Libel is not a cheap process. It has to be issued in the High Court so have a good think what resolution you want before looking at applying to court for the council to disclose the names of the senders. An apology from the council members who saw fit to rely on the emails? from those who wrote the emails? Was there any financial harm to you?

Have a read about the Striesand effect too ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect ) - at the moment you have a couple emails contained within the parish council which, presumably, aimed to get the other person appointed rather than you.