The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has refused to release the McKelvey Report in full, despite Freedom of Information requests made by VetSurgeon.org and others.

According to the College, it had always been the intention of RCVS Officers that the full report, which considered the building works in the Lower Ground Floor of the RCVS offices in Belgravia House, and the implementation of a new database, would be published.

However, on the advice of solicitors (Penningtons), only the recommendations of the Report were published initially, in November.

This publication followed discussion of the full report (one sentence was redacted on legal advice) by RCVS Council on 3 November.

Freedom of Information requests for the full report were then received by the College, so further, external senior legal advice was sought.

This advice, from Counsel, confirmed the original view from solicitors that it would be inappropriate to publish the report in full because it includes personal data, which ought not to be made public, under the Data Protection Act.

The College claims the meat of the report is in the recommendations, which account for approximately 50% of the report, and which are being taken forward by Officers and RCVS Council, with plans to put an Audit and Risk Committee in place taking priority.

The recommendations of the report, which were adopted by Council, were published online on 11 November and are available to download from the 'Related documents' box, above right.

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