Information Commissioner's Office

Summary: On the 8 April 2005 the complainant made a request for the necessary information so that he would be able to calculate for himself whether he was due council tax benefit and if so how much. The Council did not initially recognise the complainant's request as a request under the Freedom of Information Act and sent him an application form for council tax benefit. A further response from the Council explained that the usual method of assessment involved inputting the information from benefit application forms into the Council's computer system which then analyses the data and generates an assessment. After an investigation the Commissioner is satisfied that the Council were unable to disclose the information requested because they did not hold it. The Council have demonstrated that there is no general formula or calculation that could have been provided to the applicant that would allow him to calculate for himself how much council tax he may have been due. However, the Council did not make it sufficiently clear to the complainant that they did not hold the information.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: FOI 1 - Complaint Upheld, FOI 1 - Complaint Not upheld, FOI 16 - Complaint Not upheld