Information Commissioner's Office

Financial Services Authority

26 September 2005, Education (Other)

The complainant asked the FSA for information relating to the calculations they completed to work out weighted average mortgage interest rates. These rates are supplied by the FSA to the Office for National Statistics for publication and are used to calculate the Mortgage Interest Rate of Relief. The FSA provided the complainant with an explanation of the method used to calculate the weighted average. They also provided a table of the published individual interest rates for each of the 23 largest building societies which are used in the calculations. However, they refused to provide the complainant with details of the mortgage balances or the calculations carried out by the FSA citing the exemption in section 44 (1) (a) of the Act. They asserted that the disclosure is prohibited by virtue of section 348 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The Commissioner is satisfied that the public authority has handled the request correctly and that the FSA has appropriately applied the exemption in this instance. The Information Tribunal has ruled on this decision and has dismissed this appeal.

FOI 44: Not upheld