FOI - GLA ticket allocation for sporting events [Jul 2022]

Your request

A copy of the Greater London Authority internal policy used to determine how tickets
for sporting events allocated to the GLA should be used. If this is not a single policy
document, please provide copies of any policy used to inform these.

The officer, group or committee responsible for making decisions on how tickets for
sporting events allocated to the GLA are used. (I do not wish to know the names of
individuals, just the job title and unit of the officer making the decision or the same for
any officers on the group/committee making the decision).

All correspondence involving staff employed in the Mayor's Office directorate
regarding how the GLA's allocation of tickets for the Women's Euro 2022 football competition should be used. This should include any correspondence between officers within the Mayor's Office, and any correspondence between officers in the Mayor's Office and other directorates of the GLA.

To clarify, by 'staff employed' or 'officers', I would include the Mayor of London, political appointees, Assembly Members and any other employee.

Our response

There is no internal policy specifically used to determine how tickets for sporting events
allocated to the GLA should be used. For Women’s Euro 2022 we created an internal
ticket strategy (attached) for the purpose of allocating the tickets that the GLA has been
given for Women’s Euro 2022. The strategy is only for use in this tournament.

We have redacted a very small amount of information about the Mayor’s attendance at a specific match or matches. The GLA does not give advance information about the Mayor’s plans for security reasons.

Section 38 states that:
(1) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under
this Act would, or would be likely to -
(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual, or
(b) endanger the safety of any individual.

Although the redacted information is not particularly detailed and the likelihood of endangerment from the release of this information may not be high, we believe that the requested information is covered by section 38 because it relates to a prominent political figure. There have been two fatal attacks on MPs in 2016 and 2021. The GLA is mindful of
the general presumption of disclosure under the Act. However, there is no overwhelming
public interest in releasing information that may undermine security arrangements when
this information becomes public knowledge in any case, once the Mayor attends, satisfying
the public interest. The GLA would have no objection to releasing this information after the
fact, when the likelihood of harm falls away.

The GLA does not have an officer, group or committee specifically tasked for making
decisions on how tickets for sporting events allocated to the GLA are used. The Women’s
Euro 2022 ticket strategy was drafted by the Major Sports Events, Women’s Euros team and reviewed and approved by the External Relations Assistant Director.

Please find attached correspondence we hold within scope of your request. Please note that some names of members of staff are exempt from disclosure under s.40 (Personal information) of the Freedom of Information Act. This information could potentially identify specific employees and as such constitutes as personal data which is defined by Article 4(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. It is considered that disclosure of this information would contravene the first data protection principle under Article 5(1) of GDPR which states that personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject.

If you have any further questions relating to this matter, please contact me, quoting reference MGLA040722-4364.