Information Commissioner's Office

Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council

13 January 2016, Local government (Borough council)

The complainant has made a number of requests to the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (the Council) for information required for the preparation of an insurance claim pursuant to an incident which resulted in damage to his car. The Council was ordered to provide a fresh response to a number of these requests by the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) after it upheld an appeal against the Council’s initial application of section 14(1) (vexatious requests) of FOIA. It is the Council’s revised response to four of the requests (6) and 8) – 10) as originally numbered) that form the focus of the present notice. The Commissioner has found that the Council has provided the relevant information in connection with requests 6 and 9. With regard to request 8, the Commissioner has decided that the Council initially breached section 16 of FOIA by failing to provide adequate advice and assistance but remedied this during the course of the Commissioner’s investigation. In relation to request 10, the Commissioner has decided that the Council correctly applied section 12 (costs of compliance) to the request and discharged its duty to provide advice and assistance in accordance with section 16 of FOIA. The effect of these findings is that the Commissioner does not require any steps to be taken by the Council.

FOI 1: Not upheld FOI 12: Not upheld FOI 16: Partly upheld