Information Commissioner's Office

Peterborough City Council

19 June 2008, Local government (City council)

The complainant requested information concerning the council’s submission of documents relating to a complaint of maladministration that she had made to the Local Government Ombudsman. Items of the requested information were variously withheld under s43 (commercial interests), s21 (information accessible by other means), s30 (investigations and proceedings conducted by public authorities), s31 (law enforcement), s40 (personal information) and s41 (information provided in confidence). The complainant withdrew her complaint in respect of one item. One item was found to be environmental information, was found to be already publicly available and therefore Regulation 6 of the Regulations applied. With regard to the remaining item the Commissioner decided that the exemptions were incorrectly applied apart from some information which was exempt under s40(1) of the Act. The Commissioner found that the council failed to comply with s1 and s17 of the Act and failed to conform with the s45 Access Code of Practice.

FOI 1: Upheld