Information Commissioner's Office

Liverpool City Council

25 September 2014, Local government (City council)

The complainant has requested information relating to environmental health and safety issues held about certain domestic properties in Liverpool over the last ten years. The council provided the complainant some information outlining various complaints which had been made to it about the properties. It said that this was all of the information which the council holds. The complainant however said that further information must be held. Following the intervention of the Commissioner further information was located and disclosed to the complainant, however some sections were redacted under section 40(2) of FOIA. The complainant did not raise the redactions of names as an issue and so this has not been considered further. However he considers that further information must still be held by the council. The Commissioner’s decision is that the information is environmental information which should have been considered under the terms of the EIR. He has decided that on a balance of probabilities the Council has provided all of the information which it holds to the complainant. The Commissioner has however decided that the council did not comply with the requirements of Regulation 5(2) in that it failed to provide the information to the complainant within the time period of twenty working days. The Commissioner does not require the authority to take any steps.

FOI 5: Upheld FOI 40: Partly upheld