Information Commissioner's Office

Bury Parish Council

30 August 2017, Local government (Parish council)

The complainant requested information from Bury Parish Council (the Council) relating to the ownership of properties, whether certain individuals were under observation from law enforcement agencies, and whether certain residents had paid rent and council tax. The Council stated that the first two items of the requests related to the complainant’s personal data and so were Subject Access Requests (SAR) under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The Council denied holding any relevant information. The Council refused items 3 – 8 of the request under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act) and regulation 13 of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) as the information was third party personal data. The Council denied holding any information for items 9 – 12 of the request. This was amended at the internal review stage, where the Council denied holding any relevant information to the entire request. The Commissioner’s decision is that on the balance of probabilities the Council does not hold the requested information. No steps are required.

FOI 1: Not upheld EIR 12(4)(a): Not upheld