UK Offence Report

Disclosure of information by or on behalf of public authorities

article 54A(3) of The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 (Relaxation of Restriction on Disclosure) Order 2005

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

3 A person mentioned in subsection (2) who discloses any such information otherwise than as authorised by subsection (2) is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 54A(3)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person discloses any such information otherwise than as authorised by subsection (2).
  2. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 (Relaxation of Restriction on Disclosure) Order 2005.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
23 March 2005
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

Section 54 of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 (“the Act”) contains restrictions on disclosure of information. It is a criminal offence to breach those restrictions. The restrictions closely reflect the provisions of section 49 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 (“the Audit Commission Act”), thus maintaining consistency between England and Wales as regards criminal sanctions imposed by primary legislation. Section 54(6) - (8) gives the Secretary of State the power to amend or repeal the preceding provisions of the section. The power can be used only if section 49 of the Audit Commission Act has already been amended or repealed, and only for the purpose of making equivalent changes to section 54 of the Act. It cannot be used to impose any further restriction on the disclosure of information under section 54. Section 49 of the Audit Commission Act has been amended, since the Act was passed, by the Freedom of Information (Removal and Relaxation of Statutory Prohibitions on Disclosure of Information) Order 2004 (“the Freedom of Information Order”). Article 2 of the present Order amends section 54 of the Act in a manner which has the same effect as the amendments to section 49 of the Audit Commission Act. Article 2(3) removes public authorities (within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 2000), or persons acting on their behalf, from the ambit of the restriction on the disclosure of information contained in section 54. Article 2(4) then inserts a new section 54A into the Act, dealing with the disclosure of information by or on behalf of such public authorities. Like section 54, the new section applies only to information obtained by the Auditor General for Wales, or an auditor (as defined in section 59(2) of the Act), pursuant to a provision of Part 2 of the Act (local government bodies in Wales) or Part 1 of the Local Government Act 1999 (Best Value), or in the course of an audit, study or inspection under any of those provisions or under section 145C of the Government of Wales Act 1998 (studies relating to registered social landlords). The new section 54A(2)(a) and (b) preserves the ability of public authorities within the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOI Act public authorities”), and persons acting on their behalf, to disclose such information in the circumstances in which they were, before the making of this Order, able to disclose it by virtue of section 54(2). In addition, section 54A(2)(c) allows disclosure, by FOI Act public authorities and persons acting on their behalf, in any other circumstances, except where disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice the performance by any such person of their statutory functions. If an FOI Act public authority (or person acting on its behalf) discloses information in circumstances not authorised by paragraphs (a) – (c) of that section 54A(2), that person is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source