The Information Commissioner has ordered education officials to release information relating to school validation reports - or provide another notice outlining reasons why they should not.

A Freedom of Information request submitted in May last year asked for all information shared between the validation inspectors and five schools - Castle Rushen High School, QE II High School, Kewaigue Primary School, Peel Clothworkers' School and St Mary's RC School).

This include all feedback/reports given by Tribal Education Services, now known as Etio, to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture, together with minutes of meetings, outcomes and the cost of each inspection.

Following completion of a year-long pilot, the external validation visits are being carried out of all schools and education establishments on a three-year cycle.

The validation reports were supposed to have been published on each school’s website.

But in fact only a summary of the findings for each school has been made public - and one school, Rushen Primary, has not had its validation report published at all.

The DESC refused the FoI request, citing a series of exemptions including commercial interests.

Following a review request, the department again refused to provide any of the information requested.

The applicant asked the Information Commissioner to investigation and she has now upheld the complaint.

Dr Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya found that DESC’s handling of the request was deficient on several grounds.

It had failed to satisfy its duty to provide advice and assistance relating to the potential burdensome nature of the request, and also improperly invoked blanket exemptions without conducting a piece-by-piece assessment of the information held.

DESC had also failed to demonstrate it had carried out a reasonable search for requested information and had misapplied the personal data exemption, Dr Delaney-Bhattacharya found.

The Information Commissioner has given the DESC 30 days to either disclose the information requested or provide a further refusal notice.