Invest NI FOI Details

As previously mentioned, I made a follow up Freedom of Information request of Invest NI. As you may recall, this organization provided R&D financial support to BrewBot.

These monies were part of a package where a total of £ 88,257 was offered in assistance of which £ 43,973.30 had been drawn down as of 2014.

While not totally clear, it appears that there were two funding sources from Invest NI; an Access NI and Techstart NI. When asked, I received the following response:

"While Techstart NI is part of Invest NI’s Access to Finance suite of funds, each fund is operated by a Funder Manager on a commercial basis, and independent of Invest NI."

 Asking about the Letter of Offer for both of these funds, I received:

"Investments decisions by Techstart NI are made by the Funder Manager on a commercial basis.  Invest NI is not involved in the funding decisions. Documentation relating to this investment by Techstart NI  cannot be disclosed for the reasons provided in Annexes 1 and 2 attached to this letter."

Reading Annex 1; they site Exemption Section 40(2): The information relates to third party personal information.  The disclosure of this information would constitute a breach of the Data Protection Principles.

and 

Section 43(2): Disclosure would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person.

Followed by:

ANNEX 2 – PUBLIC INTEREST FACTORS RE EXEMPTION 43(2)

               

Factors in the Public Interest to Disclose:

·       The public interest is served by demonstrating accountability for the use of public funds.

·       The public interest is served by transparency and openness of Invest NI’s decision making process.

Factors in maintaining the exemption and withholding the information requested:

·       There is an inherent public interest in ensuring fairness of competition and, as Brewbot and Techstart NI have legitimate economic interests in it would not be in the public interest to put them at a disadvantage in a commercially competitive market.

·       It would be unfair for the commercial interests of a third party to be undermined simply because they liaised with, and share information with, a public sector body.

Invest NI Decision

·       Having examined the above factors, it is considered that, on balance, the public interest rests in not disclosing the information being withheld under the exemption.

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While I think that I could argue a pretty convincing case against their ruling on 43(2) that blocked the release of this information, as per the previous FOI no IP was owned/transferred within the terms of this agreement the commercial activities are not prejudiced. We should also consider what if/when BrewBot closes their doors? At that point, there would no long exist a "legitimate economic interest" for competition and these records should then be accessible.

Thanks for the comments and updates that you backers are posting in the comments section. It sounds like there has been little (or zero) information from BrewBot/Chris for quite awhile - which raises more questions!

As always, please continue to repost the link/blog to Kickstarter, Reddit, etc. as the more backers we can reach the greater our influence.

The quest for BrewBot Answers continues.