GIDS Complaints 2012-22

Reference: 25-26411

Date response sent: 21/01/2026

Details of enquiry

With regards to the former Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).  For the period between 2012 and 2022 please provide the following information.

1. Total number of complaints made about this clinic by parents of trans / non binary minors
2. Number of complaints by families that felt gender affirming care had been provided wrongly of inappropriately
3. Any synopsis of the nature of these complaints would be appreciated but can be omitted if unavailable or if it would make the request arduous
4. Number of complaints pursued via law firm Pogust Goodhead

Response sent

The data you have requested for the ten year period, 2012-2022 is presented in the table/s below, where we have masked low numbers with the symbol ‘≤5’, which indicates where numbers are equal to 5 or less than 5. The Trust follows guidance by the Information Commissioner, established to not provide exact data where the numbers are smaller than 6 as this may lead to identification of individuals.

The Trust has engaged exemption from releasing exact low numbers in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) Section 40(2) (Information which constitutes the personal data of any person other than the applicant, where disclosure would not be permitted under GDPR, thereby breaching GDPR Principle (a): Lawfulness, fairness and transparency.

As this is an absolute exemption, we do not have to apply the Public Interest Test when engaging this exemption

The Trust recognises a high level of interest from public in how the public purse has been spent on services, and must balance this against disclosure of any small numbers and the years in which these instances occurred, which – whilst not directly identifying individuals, would nevertheless give rise to a disclosure of personal data, as follows:

• Although the year of alone is not personal data, we have also to consider whether other information that is already available, or may become available, to any member of the public, could be combined with the data requested so as to enable identification of the individual(s) concerned.
• There is a high chance of recognition/identification of particular individuals/patients by fellow patients/colleagues and/or others from the low numbers.
• This masking of low numbers is not a just a question of considering the means reasonably likely to be used by general public, but also the means likely to be used by a determined person with a particular reason to want to identify individuals from data in the public domain now or in the future, and/or gained from other sources.