Information Commissioner's Office

Cardiff Council

17 July 2017, Local government (City council)

The complainant has requested various items of information in respect of the Band C Council Tax exemption and the inspection of properties. This was following a previous request in relation to the Council’s policy on the same subject matter, which resulted in two previous decision notices being issued, (FS50472358 and FS50546033) and subsequently appealed to First-tier Tribunal. The first of which [EA/2013/0183], whilst accepting that there was no formal policy, maintained that the Council must hold some information within its records somewhere, with the second [EA/2014/0318] upholding the Commissioner’s decision notice that section 12 of the FOIA was engaged in respect of complying with the request. In respect of this request, the Council relied on section 12 for some of the information, and confirmed that it did not hold relevant information in respect of item four of the request.  The Commissioner’s decision is that Cardiff Council has correctly relied on section 12 of the FOIA in respect of items one to three of the request. However, its failure to locate and provide information falling within the scope of the request until the Commissioner’s involvement represents a breach of section 1(1) of the FOIA. Since the information has now been provided to the complainant however, the Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps. This decision notice is currently under appeal to the Tribunal.

FOI 1(1): Upheld FOI 12: Not upheld