Information Commissioner's Office

East Riding of Yorkshire Council

27 September 2007, Local government (District council)

The complainant requested information from East Riding of Yorkshire Council (the Council) relating to its health and safety policy and procedures, particularly where the policies and procedures address how risk is assessed and managed. The Council refused to comply with the request on the grounds that it considered it to be vexatious under section 14 of the Act (vexatious or repeated requests). The Commissioner found that, given the history of the correspondence between the complainant and the Council regarding the issue of risk assessment, the request in question would impose a significant burden on the public authority in terms of expense and distraction and that it is designed to cause disruption and annoyance, has the effect of harassing the public authority and could be fairly characterised as obsessive. Therefore he decided that the Council was correct to apply the exemption under section 14(1) of the Act. The Commissioner also found that the Council had failed to respond to the request within 20 working days, and therefore had breached section 17(5) of the Act (refusal of request). The Council is not required to take any further steps in respect of this complaint. Information Tribunal appeal number EA/2007/0109 has been dismissed.

FOI 14: Not upheld