Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data (Data Quality, Q3 2019)
Gavin Chait made this Rhyddid Gwybodaeth request to Southend-on-Sea City Council
This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Southend on Sea Borough Council,
I am aware that you already publish data http://www.southend.gov.uk/downloads/fil... which mostly answers this request, however the occupation status (occupied/void) is not included.
Please could you correct this and provide an updated version of your data.
Yours faithfully,
Gavin Chait
Dear G Chait,
Re: Freedom of Information Request
I am writing regarding your request for information, which was received on
13.11.19.
In that request you asked us for information regarding the occupation
status of businesses within Southend-on-Sea.
We have considered your request for details of the occupation status of
businesses within Southend-on-Sea.
We have however decided not to provide this information. Section 31(1)(a)
of the Freedom of Information Act says that we do not need to provide
information that would be likely to prejudice the functions of law
enforcement, including the prevention of crime.
Information supplied under the Freedom of Information Act is released to
the world at large and made public. Providing the type of data you are
requesting we believe would, or would be likely to, encourage the
identified locations to be a target of crime, for example squatters,
vandalism and street crime.
Because of this, under section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council is unable to supply the requested
information.
We have considered the public interest in this matter; however we believe
that any benefit arising from disclosure is by far outweighed by the real
and substantial risk of harm, arising from criminal activities, which
would be likely to follow the disclosure.
Our response is in no way intended to imply that we suspect you of any
fraudulent activity, but as information provided under the Freedom of
Information Act is given to the world at large, we have to consider the
wider implications of any disclosure.
If you wish to discuss any of the above, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to request a review of our response, you should write to
the Knowledge and Information Manager, PO Box 6, Civic Centre, Victoria
Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS2 6ER.
If you are not content with the outcome of your review, you can make a
complaint under the Council’s complaints process by writing to Corporate
Complaints Officer, Office of the Chief Executive, PO Box 6, Civic Centre,
Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS2 6ER.
You can also apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a
decision although generally the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have
exhausted the Council’s complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner
can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe
House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely,
Dominic Sexton
Information Performance Officer
Corporate Freedom of Information Team
Holly Gudgin – Corporate Freedom of Information Team – Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council
Working to make lives better
( 01702 534929 (Direct) | *
[1][email address] |8 [2]www.southend.gov.uk
Corporate Strategy Group l Transformation Service l Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council | Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend on Sea, Essex,
SS2 6ER
[3][IMG]
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The information in this e-mail and any attachments is confidential and may
be subject to legal professional privilege. It is intended solely for the
attention and use of the named addressee(s). If you are not the intended
recipient, please notify the sender immediately. Unless you are the
intended recipient or his/her representative you are not authorised to,
and must not, read, copy, distribute, use or retain this message or any
part of it. Communications sent to or from this organisations may be
subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant
legislation.
At present the integrity of e-mail across the Internet cannot be
guaranteed and messages and documents sent via this medium are potentially
at risk. You should perform your own virus checks before opening any
attachments.
Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
need to.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.southend.gov.uk/
http://www.southend.gov.uk/
3. https://www.southend.gov.uk/
Dear Southend on Sea Borough Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Southend on Sea Borough Council's handling of my FOI request 'Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data (Data Quality, Q3 2019)'.
On 13 November 2019, I sent an FOI request for a complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data, and including the following fields:
- Billing Authority Code
- Firm's Trading Name (i.e. property occupant)
- Full Property Address (Number, Street, Postal Code, Town)
- Occupied / Vacant
- Date of Occupation / Vacancy
- Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)
My request has been refused in terms of Section 31(1)(a). According to the Information Commissioner's Office, "Section 31 is a prejudice based exemption and is subject to the public interest test. This means that not only does the information have to prejudice one of the purposes listed, but, before the information can be withheld, the public interest in preventing that prejudice must outweigh the public interest in disclosure."
Section 31(1)(a) deals specifically with "the prevention or detection of crime".
You don’t state what the nature of the risk of crime is, and it is not sufficient to simply claim Section 31. There is a de minimus requirement required to engage Section 31, and - thereafter - the public interest test takes priority. I have prepared my own research into crime in vacant commercial properties by sending FOIs to every police authority in England and Wales. What follows is my submission to ICO and to the Information Tribunal in various cases over the past few years. Apologies if it seems pedantic, but it is critical that we have a common set of probabilistic definitions.
Vacancies form a small proportion of any commercial property base. Vacancy rates vary from as little as 2.6% in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, to 19.4% in the West Midlands.
Assuming that crime is evenly distributed (i.e. that an occupied commercial property is as likely to experience crime as an unoccupied property), for a vacancy rate of 10% you would expect a ratio of 9 crimes in occupied properties for each crime in an unoccupied property (ratio of 9:1).
In a street of 10 commercial properties, if 10 crimes were committed, and every property had an equal chance of being affected, then – all things being equal – each property, vacant or not, would experience one crime. That is the definition of “equal probability”, any property – irrespective of occupation state – is at the same risk.
Therefore, if we know the absolute number of property-related crimes, we can estimate a predicted number of crimes for both occupied and vacant properties. If the real data reveals more crime than predicted we have a positive correlation for increased risk; if the real data reveals the opposite, less crime than predicted, we have a negative correlation for increased risk.
According to UK Crime Stats (https://www.ukcrimestats.com/Subdivision...) Southend-on-Sea experiences the following level of crime between October 2018 and September 2019 relating to Burglary + Criminal damage & arson + Robbery + Shoplifting = 4,381.
The ratio of 10 to 1 implies that, if there were 4,381 commercial property-related crimes, an average of 438 of these types of crimes would have been committed in vacant properties between October 2018 and September 2019.
Compare your data and offer some evidence as to why you believe you are experiencing a greater-than-expected level of crime in vacant commercial properties.
It is insufficient to simply produce evidence that crime occurs in vacant properties. That is barely-sufficient to meet de minimus requirements. It is necessary to produce evidence demonstrating that vacancy property crime occurs at a rate higher than expected. I do not believe that you have done so; or could.
I requested statistics on crimes by vacancy status from Essex Police in March 2016. These data are not aggregated and Essex Police were unable to comply unless I was willing to pay to have them go back through each written crime report and extract that data manually, if it existed at all (https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a...). If Essex Police have no data, then Southend on Sea has no data.
If you have data that supports crime levels in vacant properties significantly in excess of what is expected per year, then we can assess whether or not vacant properties are at greater risk to crime. Note, however, greater risk does not identify the cause of that risk. I imagine that this would be of interest?
When I started my research in early 2016, 70 out of 348 local authorities were already regularly publishing their vacancy data to their open data websites. However, 66 local authorities in England and Wales refused to publish citing the risk of such data being used to commit crime. Their justifications cited previous findings by the Information Tribunal (such as Mr. Yiannis Voyias v the Information Commissioner and Camden EA/2011/0007) to validate their decisions.
They did not conduct their own risk assessments, they simply used Voyias as justification.
During 2016, I sent FOI requests to all police services across England and Wales requesting total number of incidents of criminal activity in empty commercial properties. At the time, I had secured 66% of vacancy data from local authorities through FOI requests, and direct access.
The combination of crime incident data and the list of local authorities would permit easy comparison between areas that regularly disclose and those which choose not to in order to assess whether there is a greater risk as a result of disclosure.
Out of 44 police services, only two were able to provide data on incidents in empty commercial properties. The remaining police services do not specifically collect such data and have no way of knowing what the incident rates are.
The two who have are Thames Valley Police and North Wales Police. If a relevant police authority is advising you on a Section 31(1)(a) exemption, then - unless they are either of these - they do not have data to validate their opinion.
There are about 45,000 commercial properties in North Wales and vacancies are about 8%, leading to an expected crime ratio of 12:1. North Wales Police state that there are an average of 1,780 crimes a year in occupied properties, and 26 crimes a year in unoccupied properties that largely have to do with theft, vandalism or arson (note that squatting in commercial property is not a crime and so unrecorded).
The total of 1,806 implies the expected number of vacant property crime incidents to be 71; 270% higher than the actual 26 recorded.
In other words, there is a large negative correlation between crimes committed in vacant properties relative to what was expected. A vacant property is less likely to experience crime.
This tells us that crime in empty commercial premises is extremely rare, and explains why most police services do not bother routinely aggregating such data.
The data from the Thames Valley police gives us a better idea of the variation between authorities which publish, and those which don’t.
For example, in 2015 Oxford had 4,038 commercial properties and suffered 2 cases of empty commercial property crime at a cost of £1,259. In comparison, they had 3,133 cases of crime committed in occupied business premises, at a cost of £507,956.
By comparison, Reading, with 5,659 commercial properties suffered 2 empty commercial property crimes that caused no damage at all.
Oxford refuses to publish under Section 31(1)(a) while Reading publishes regularly.
In total, across the Thames Valley, for 74,027 properties - of which about 7,000 are empty (9.5%) - only 11 crimes related to empty properties were recorded. Compare that to occupied and actively-traded properties which experienced 29,946 reported crimes.
For an approximate 9:1 vacancy ratio, and 30,000 crimes, you would expect 3,000 vacant property crimes. 11 is a statistical rounding error. Crime in vacant properties is not a meaningful risk.
The Thames Valley data are here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a...
And the North Wales Police data are here: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/a...
In two distinct parts of the UK, with different approaches to recording crime, empty property crime is extremely rare, and – more importantly for publication considerations – publication of data listing empty properties does not have any impact on the number of incidents of crime.
Some local authorities who claim exemption under Section 31(1)(a) claim to have their own data to validate these claims. I sent FOIs requesting these data to 64 local authorities (including both those who do publish empty property data, and those who do not). Not one has any data - other than very sparse anecdotal data to support their claim.
All the data I collected indicates that there is no substantive basis for concern that publishing a list of empty properties will lead to prejudice under Section 31.
In November 2016, I appealed this class of refusal – using this evidence – to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
My central argument was that, in order to justify a Section 31(1)(a) exemption it is not sufficient simply to claim that crime occurs in empty commercial premises. Neither should anecdotal tales suffice. It is also necessary to provide evidence that publishing a list of empty properties in real, measurable terms increases the expected incidence rate for crime in such properties.
My submissions to ICO resulted in the following findings in my favour:
FS50628943 vs Cornwall Council; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50628978 vs London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681246 vs London Borough of Camden; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681250 vs London Borough of Greenwich; citing Section 31(1)(a) and Section 38(1)(b);
FS50681266 vs Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames Borough; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681283 vs Westminster City Council who cited Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681292 vs London Borough of Wandsworth; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681297 vs Knowsley Metropolitan Borough; citing Section 31(1)(a), 40(2), and 41;
FS50681322 vs West Berkshire Council; citing Section 31(1)(d);
FS50681326 vs Vale of Glamorgan; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681332 vs Doncaster Metropolitan Borough; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50681336 vs Sheffield City Council; citing Section 31(1)(a), 31(1)(d), and 41;
FS50685343 vs London Borough of Ealing; citing Section 31(1)(a), 31(1)(d), and 31(2);
FS50685350 vs Liverpool City Council; citing Section 31(1)(a);
FS50685375 vs West Lancashire Borough Council; citing 31(1)(a);
In each of these decisions, the Commissioner either dismissed the application of the exemptions cited, or declared that “the public interest in the information being disclosed outweighs that in the exemption being maintained”.
Any claim in support of Section 31(1)(a) must also consider the public interest in the data requested.
In support of public interest, I offer that 96% of 348 local authorities in England and Wales now publish commercial vacancy data. 71% publish these as regular updates to their authority websites or open data services.
Retail and commercial vacancy, and its impact on commercial rates continue to be of great public interest (cf, as a small example, “City figures warn high street landlords face ‘tsunami’ of pressures” https://www.ft.com/content/fa7c48d0-6993..., “After the retail apocalypse, what next for the high street?” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018..., “An investigation of the impact of 2017 business rates revaluation on independent high street retailers in the north of England” https://www.emeraldinsight.com/eprint/wT...).
These claims of a ‘retail apocalypse’ are having a very real impact on the capacity for local authorities to collect commercial rates. Most recently, Debenhams – the department store chain – has demanded business rates cuts to support their viability (https://www.ft.com/content/1bcbb9fc-6b3e...). It is critical that researchers have the data to test such claims, both now, and over time, in order to ensure that it is possible to differentiate between poor individual business management, and general economic difficulties.
I ask that you reconsider your refusal, and publish. Failing that, I will refer this matter to ICO for further review.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Gavin Chait
Dear G Chait,
Thank you for your email.
We have logged your review for an Internal Review, and this has been
passed to the relevant officer.
Your response should be sent to you by 13^th December 2019.
Kind regards,
Dominic Sexton – Corporate Freedom of Information Team – Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council
Working to Make Lives Better
( 01702 215107 (Direct)
| * [1][email address] |8 [2]www.southend.gov.uk
Corporate Strategy Group l Transformation Service l Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council | Floor 2 Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend on Sea,
SS2 6ER
Dear Mr Chait,
I refer to your request for a review of the response provided to you in
respect of your FOI request 09199.
Whilst it is our intention to provide a response to your request for a
review as quickly as possible, it is necessary for us to consult with
colleagues and other interested parties in relation to the arguments you
have put forward regarding the information requested being provided in the
public interest.
Although there is no set timescale for a review to be completed, we are
aware that the ICO has recommended a response should be provided within 40
working days.
As a result, to enable us to review our position and give serious
consideration to the points you have raised, we propose to extend the
timescale within which to provide a response by a further 20 days and
expect to be able to provide a response no later than 15^th January 2020.
Yours sincerely,
Karen Finn - Information Performance Officer – Corporate Strategy Group
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council - Working to make lives better
Please note my working pattern is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Strategic Services (Transformation) | Southend-on-Sea Borough Council |
Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend on Sea, SS2 6ER
( 01702 534527 (Direct)
| * [email address] |8 [1]www.southend.gov.uk
[2]Description: Twitter [3]Twitter@southendbc
[4]Description: Facebook [5]Facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
[6]Description: Flickr [7]Flickr.com/southendbc
[8]Description: Insta Instagram.com/southendbc
References
Visible links
1. http://www.southend.gov.uk/
http://www.southend.gov.uk/
3. http://www.twitter.com/southendbc
5. http://www.facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
7. http://www.flickr.com/southendbc
Dear Mr Chait,
We have reviewed the response with which you were provided in connection
with your Freedom of Information request, our reference FOI 09199.
Your original Freedom of Information request, received on 13^th November
2019, observed that you were aware the Council already published data
relating to commercial properties in Southend-on-Sea, but that this
published data did not include the occupation status.
You requested this be corrected and an updated version of the commercial
property information be provided.
A response was provided to this request on 14^th November 2019. The
response advised that your request for details of the occupation status of
businesses within Southend-on-Sea had been considered. However, the
Council had decided not provide the information, relying on Section
31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act which states that we do not
need to provide information that would be likely to prejudice the
functions of law enforcement, including the prevention of crime.
The response went on to advise that information supplied under the Freedom
of Information Act is released to the world at large and made public.
Providing the type of data requested would, or would be likely to,
encourage the identified locations to be a target of crime; for example,
squatters, vandalism and street crime.
For this reason, the Council declined to provide the information under
Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The response went to say that the Council had considered the public
interest in the matter but took the view that any benefit from disclosing
the information was far outweighed by the real and substantial risk of
harm arising from criminal activities which would be likely to follow
disclosure.
The response clarified that it was in no way implied that you were
suspected of any fraudulent activity but, as the information is provided
to the world at large, the Council had to consider the wider implications
of any disclosure.
You asked for this response to be reviewed on 15^th November 2019 advising
that it was not sufficient to cite Section 31 and not state what the
nature of the risk of crime was, nor provide evidence to corroborate those
concerns.
You provided detailed information to support your view that crime in
vacant commercial properties was no greater than that experienced in
occupied properties. In addition, you provided a number of ICO cases you
had taken to appeal applying the same arguments.
The original response and your subsequent request for a review have been
reviewed. The Council has also carried out its own further internal
research relating to the risks associated with disclosure of the
information and considered each of the Tribunal cases.
It is noted that in each of the cases appealed to the ICO, the ICO itself
accepted that the Councils concerned were correct, in the first instance,
to apply Section 31(1)(a), although it subsequently also took the view
that the public interest in providing the information then outweighed the
risks associated with disclosure.
Having taken all of the relevant factors into consideration, we have
revised our position and will provide you with the information you have
requested regarding unoccupied commercial properties in Southend-on-Sea.
In order to minimise associated risks, we have taken the view that this
information can be made available in response to individual requests
through the FOI scheme but will not be made publicly available online.
There is no requirement for the Council to do so under the transparency
scheme and, as outlined in our original response, it remains the case that
the Council is mindful of such information being in the wider public
domain. We will wish to monitor whether the provision of the information
is detrimental in nature to vacant commercial properties within the
Borough and will take account of any new case law as it arises.
The ICO also agreed that Section 40(2) was correctly applied, in respect
of information that could constitute personal data. In the circumstances,
information regarding sole traders and partnerships, including addresses,
will remain excluded from the list provided.
This information is in the process of being collated and will be forwarded
to you as quickly as possible under separate email.
This completes my review. If you are unhappy with the way in which your
request has been administered, you may wish to make use of the Council’s
[1]complaints procedure.
If you feel that the Council has not correctly applied the Freedom of
Information legislation, you may wish to approach the [2]Information
Commissioner for advice.
Yours sincerely,
Karen Finn - Information Performance Officer – Corporate Strategy Group
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council - Working to make lives better
Please note my working pattern is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
Strategic Services (Transformation) | Southend-on-Sea Borough Council |
Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend on Sea, SS2 6ER
( 01702 534527 (Direct)
| * [email address] |8 [3]www.southend.gov.uk
[4]Description: Twitter [5]Twitter@southendbc
[6]Description: Facebook [7]Facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
[8]Description: Flickr [9]Flickr.com/southendbc
[10]Description: Insta Instagram.com/southendbc
References
Visible links
1. http://www.southend.gov.uk/info/200442/c...
2. https://ico.org.uk/
3. http://www.southend.gov.uk/
http://www.southend.gov.uk/
5. http://www.twitter.com/southendbc
7. http://www.facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
9. http://www.flickr.com/southendbc
Dear Mr Chait,
Please see attached our response to your earlier request following the
internal review of the previous refusal.
The information now provided in the attached spreadsheet is current,
produced as at 29^th January 2020, which I am sure is what you would
require.
I trust the information meets your requirements, although the reporting
used to obtain this information does not contain the information about the
actual amount of rates payable. This is a field which has been
incorporated into the latest version of the reporting tool which
conversely does not include the “Empty from” field you particularly
require.
Kind regards, Jon Claxton
Jonathan Claxton – Senior Revenues Training Officer – Southend-on-Sea
Borough Council
Creating a Better Southend
( 01702 212569 (Direct) | * [1][email address]
8 [2]www.southend.gov.uk
Finance and Resources Service l Southend-on-Sea Borough Council | 9th
Floor, Civic Centre, Victoria Avenue, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS2 6AN
[3]cid:image001.png@01D50C8C.3A6A08C0 [4]Twitter@southendbc
[5]cid:image002.png@01D50C8C.3A6A08C0 [6]Facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
[7]cid:image003.png@01D50C8C.3A6A08C0 [8]Flickr.com/southendbc
[9]cid:image004.jpg@01D50C8C.3A6A08C0 Instagram.com/southendbc
[10][IMG]
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
The information in this e-mail and any attachments is confidential and may
be subject to legal professional privilege. It is intended solely for the
attention and use of the named addressee(s). If you are not the intended
recipient, please notify the sender immediately. Unless you are the
intended recipient or his/her representative you are not authorised to,
and must not, read, copy, distribute, use or retain this message or any
part of it. Communications sent to or from this organisations may be
subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant
legislation.
At present the integrity of e-mail across the Internet cannot be
guaranteed and messages and documents sent via this medium are potentially
at risk. You should perform your own virus checks before opening any
attachments.
Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really
need to.
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.southend.gov.uk/
4. http://www.twitter.com/southendbc
6. http://www.facebook.com/SouthendBCOfficial
8. http://www.flickr.com/southendbc
10. https://www.southend.gov.uk/
We work to defend the right to FOI for everyone
Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account. Donate and support our work.
Donate Now