Information Commissioner's Office

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

30 November 2015, Local government (Borough council)

The complainant requested information from Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (the Council) relating to two planning applications. The Council considered that Regulations 12(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial or industrial information) and (f) (the interests of the person who provided the information) apply to some of the withheld information and that Regulations 12(4)(d) (unfinished documents) and (e) (internal communications) apply to all the withheld information. The Commissioner’s decision is that those Regulations are, for the most part, not engaged. He finds that while Regulation 12(4)(e) is engaged in respect of some of the information, the public interest favours disclosure of some of that information. The Commissioner requires the public authority to disclose to the complainant those aspects of the withheld information identified in the annex to this decision notice. 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 12(4)(d): Upheld EIR 12(4)(e): Partly upheld EIR 12(5)(e): Upheld EIR 12(5)(f): Upheld