The Council holds the information you request but for the reasons set out in this letter considers that the Requested Informat

KIRKLEES METROPOLITAN COUNCIL

REFUSAL NOTICE

SECTION 17 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000

REQUEST BY NATALIE DAVIS FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING CREDIT BALANCES FOR NATIONAL NON-DOMESTIC RATES PAYERS

1 Request

The request is for “(a) addresses and rateable values of all properties that have any historic credit on their account (b) the names and addresses of the owners of those properties referred to in (a)”. The Council has interpreted this as being a request for rating information only in respect of ratepayers which are corporate bodies.

The Council holds the information requested but for the reasons set out in this notice considers that the requested information is exempt for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act because it was provided to the Council in confidence. The Council has had regard to the Information Commissioner's “Freedom of Information Act Awareness Guidance No 2: Information provided in confidence” and the Information Commissioner's Decision Notice Reference FS 50121245 in making its decision to refuse the request.

2 Reasons

Section 41 of the Act provides that:

41. - (1) Information is exempt information if-

(a) it was obtained by the public authority from any other person (including another public authority), and

(b) the disclosure of the information to the public (otherwise than under this Act) by the public authority holding it would constitute a breach of confidence actionable by that or any other person

(2) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act) constitute an actionable breach of confidence

The Information Commissioner has accepted that there is a principle of taxpayer confidentiality in English law which protects the tax arrangements of taxpayers from release to the public and which exists , in part, to prevent prejudice to the commercial interests of taxpayers. (See Decision Notice Ref FS 50121245 at paragraph 17). The Council believes that disclosure of the requested information would give rise to actionable breach of confidence ie individual NNDR payers could issue legal proceedings against the Council if it were to disclose the information.

The requested information has the necessary “quality of confidence” in that there is an established principle that the tax arrangements of taxpayers are protected from release to the public, the requested information is not trivial and is not readily available by other means.

Even where information is confidential there are three circumstances where the courts accept that it may be disclosed:

Where the party providing the information consents. In the context of this request no consent has been obtained from individual corporate taxpayers.
Where disclosure is required by law, which does not apply in this case.
Where there is an overriding public interest in disclosure. This would require strong grounds for breaching confidentiality. The issue is whether the good of society outweighs the importance of preserving confidences. While there is a public interest in scrutinising how effectively the Council administers the NNDR system, there is very limited public interest in how an individual taxpayer's account has been dealt with in the absence of allegations of serious misconduct. To release the requested information, which relates to the tax affairs of individual corporate taxpayers, would be excessive and go beyond what is necessary to afford the public an adequate level of scrutiny of the Council's administration of the NNDR system. There is no evidence that disclosure of the requested information would be justified as a breach of confidence.

The request for disclosure is therefore refused.

3 Review

If you wish the Council to review its decision that disclosure of the requested information should be refused you should write to the Head of Legal Services at Legal Services, Civic Center III, High Street, Huddersfield HD1 2TG. This person has had no involvement in the decision set out in this Refusal Notice. It would assist if any such request for a review were clearly marked as such and specifically referred to this refusal notice.

If you requested such a review and were not content with the outcome you would have the right under section 50 of the Act to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision as to whether your request had been dealt with in accordance with the Act. The Information Commissioner's website is at www.ico.gov.uk and gives more information about the role and duties of the Commissioner.

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