Information Commissioner's Office

Carmarthenshire County Council

29 November 2005, Local government (County council)

The complainant requested detailed information from the Council about all its vehicles currently registered with DVLA and those it had sold. The information requested included, amongst other things, information about vehicle identification numbers (VINs), vehicle registration marks (VRMs), fleet numbers, make and model types and type of body. The Council withheld some information under section 31 of the Act on the basis that its disclosure would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. The Council issued a refusal notice to the complainant that did not include the public interest test. The Commissioner decided that the Council had applied section 31 correctly only in relation to some of the information. The Commissioner also found that the original refusal notice had not complied with section 17 of the Act.

FOI 31: Partly upheld FOI 17: Upheld