British
and Irish Legal Information Institute
Freely Available British and Irish Public Legal Information
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback]
Information Commissioner's Office
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Information Commissioner's Office >> Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (Local government) [2019] UKICO fs50839621 (12 November 2019)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKICO/2019/fs50839621.html
Cite as: [2019] UKICO fs50839621
[New search] [Printable PDF version] [Help]
Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council
The complainant requested information about traffic counts prior to the introduction of a 20 miles per hour speed limit in a specified area. Sefton Council (the ‘Council’) interpreted the request as being for five streets for which it had previously provided related information. Following further correspondence from the complainant, in which it became apparent that he required the information for more streets than had been initially considered by the Council, it subsequently cited section 12(1) of FOIA, the cost of compliance, but chose to provide the information for 67 counts up to the cost limit, despite not being obligated to do so. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council should have interpreted the request as being for information for the “whole of L23” from the outset, as stated by the complainant in his request, and therefore should have cited section 12(1) in response to his original request. By failing to consider its section 16 obligations in relation to objectively interpreting the request from the outset, and by failing to offer the complainant advice and assistance as to how he might refine his request to bring it within the section 12(1) cost limit, the Council has breached section 16(1) of FOIA. However, as the intended objective interpretation of the request was subsequently reiterated by the complainant, and the Council has provided its revised response, the Commissioner does not require the Council to take any retrospective steps in relation to its section 16 obligations. Further, as the Council chose to provide information up to the cost limit in response to the intended objective interpretation of the request (which it is not obligated to do), and as the complainant has not complained about the Council’s reliance on section 12(1), the Commissioner does not require any section 16 step in respect of this matter.FOI 16: Complaint upheld
Decision notice: fs50839621