cited in paragraph 24 of the Decision Notice. Two of the decision notices were also upheld on appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. 88. The crux of Ground 3 was that the Authority considered that the Commissioner had been inconsistent in his decision making and should have allowed the Authority to withhold the Requested Information, given his conclusions in those earlier decisions. 89. The Commissioner’s position (which was also reflected in the Decision Notice) was that he previously upheld the Authority’s approach to withholding the information in question on the basis that the policy which was the subject of the requests in those cases was still live at the relevant time. This contrasted with the Commissioner’s view, in the current instance, that the Free Access Policy was not live at the time of the Request. 90. We agree with the Commissioner’s submissions that Ground 3 can be dismissed on the basis that each decision notice of his is unique and turns on its own facts (including with regard to the Public Interest Test). 91. Moreover, in respect of the Tribunal’s jurisdiction which we referred to in paragraphs 20 and 21, the Tribunal undertakes a ‘fresh review’ of a public authority’s response to a request for information under FOIA and exercises a ‘full merits appellate jurisdiction’ of the Commissioner’s decision notices. Consequently, when an appeal is made to the First-tier Tribunal in respect of a decision notice issued by the Commissioner, the Tribunal itself is not constrained to determine matters by reference to the Commissioner’s earlier decision notices (or the decision notice which is actually the subject of the appeal). 92. Further, even other First-Tier Tribunal decisions are not binding on us and, again, each such decision turns on its facts. 93. Therefore we consider that the Authority’s arguments in Ground 3 regarding the consistency of the Commissioner’s earlier decisions have no merit. Final conclusions 94. For all of the reasons we have given, we find that the Decision Notice was correct to conclude that the Authority was not entitled to rely on the exemption in section 35(1)(a) in respect of the information it withheld in reliance on that section on the basis that the Public Interest Test favoured disclosure of it. 95. We therefore dismiss the appeal. Signed: Stephen Roper Judge of the First-tier Tribunal Date: 16 November 2025 12