Saturday 4 July 2009

Reserved business sessions

Wednesday 6 February 2008

The default assumption is that committees will discuss all requests for advice in open session. The following approach is used to decide under what circumstances meetings of scientific advisory committees should be held in reserved business sessions. Individual committees utilise the criteria which apply to their own business.

Approach

If departments, policy divisions or data holders request that the committee review confidential information as reserved business, they are required to make representation to the Secretariat as to why this particular topic should be exempted from discussion in public session. This requires a need to specify the particular harm that disclosure would cause and provide reasons why this overrides the public interest for disclosure, particularly given the increased transparency and confidence arising from public discussion.

Some examples of material which might be considered in reserved business sessions are:

unpublished research results or reports (including results of FSA surveys), intended for publication subsequently
draft guidelines or risk assessments or reviews – whether the committee's own work-in-progress or arising from the work of other bodies or committees
confidential patient information or personal information about named individuals
documents and other information circulated by the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority or other Member States (unless that information is already in the public domain
requests from regulatory authorities to assess data obtained using regulatory powers that provide absolute confidentiality
evaluation of substances of particular sensitivity
commercial data (see below)

Commercial data

There are three options for dealing with commercial data:

All data provided to be made public and consideration in open session.
Selected parts of the data are confidential or commercially sensitive. Here, there is the option to discuss in open session or as reserved business. The preferred route will be decided in discussion with the data holder and Chair.
Evaluations/dossiers are commercially sensitive or confidential. These will be considered in reserved business session.

If any data are withheld, data holders are encouraged to put forward a time-frame for subsequent release of the information.

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Reserved business sessions

Approach

Commercial data

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