Information Commissioner's Office

Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council

19 May 2015, Local government (Borough council)

The complainant has requested information concerning rent arrears for the last five years from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (the Council). The Council initially provided some information and informed the complainant it did not hold any more. The complainant referred this matter to the Commissioner who wrote to the Council asking it for further detail regarding the information not held. The Council then applied section 14(1) to this request. The Commissioner informed the Council that he did not consider the request was vexatious and asked again for the Council’s arguments as to why the information was not held. The Council then explained why it could not respond to each part of the request and now identified information held on manual records which it argued would take too long to locate. It therefore considered section 12 would apply to this data. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council was incorrect to initially refuse part of this request on the grounds that the information is not held. It is therefore in breach of section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA. However the Commissioner considers that the Council is correct to apply section 12 to the outstanding information. No further steps are required.

FOI 12: Not upheld