Information Commissioner's Office

Cambridgeshire County Council

6 October 2015, Local government (County council)

The complainant has requested information held on a database by the council relating to Global Information System (GIS) data on rights of way. The council applied Regulation 6(1)(b) as it argues that this information is publicly available from its online interactive map. It also applied Regulations 12(4)(e) (internal communications) and 12(4)(d) (material still in the course of completion) to information held on its database which is not available from the map. The Commissioner’s decision is that the council was not correct to apply Regulation 6(1)(b) to the information. He has decided that the council was correct to apply Regulation 12(4)(e) to the ‘Notes’ field and the CCC Maintainable’ field of the database, and Regulation 12(4)(d) to the ‘CCC Maintainable’ field. He has however decided that the council was not correct to apply either of these exceptions to the ‘Last Checked’ field of the database. The Commissioner has also decided that the council did not comply with Regulation 5(2) in that it did not provide its response to the request within 20 working days. The council also did not comply with the requirements of Regulation 11(4) in that its response to a request to review its decision was not provided within 40 working days. The Commissioner requires the public authority disclose the information from the database to the complainant, other than information held within the ‘Notes’ field and the ‘CCC Maintainable’ field of the database. The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.

EIR 5(2): Upheld EIR 6(1)(b): Upheld EIR 11(4): Upheld EIR 12(4)(d): Partly upheld EIR 12(4)(e): Partly upheld