Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data

The request was successful.

Dear Stockton on Tees Council,

In terms of the Freedom of Information Act of 2000, could you please provide me with a complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data for your local authority, 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)

While such data series are often published by local authorities, I have undertaken a thorough search of your website and have not found these. If they are available, as requested, then please - in terms of Section 21 of the act - could you provide a link to the page where the data are published, as well as guidance on the update frequency.

I appreciate that properties owned / rented by individuals are personal information and such personal data (i.e. the Firm's Trading Name) would be excluded from my request in terms of Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In such cases, please provide the remaining information with the Firm's Trading Name either blank or listed as 'individual'.

Please provide this as machine-readable as either a CSV or Microsoft Excel file, capable of re-use, and under terms of the Open Government Licence.

I am compiling a comprehensive time-series database of business activity across the UK and will require the dataset updated on a quarterly basis. Some 20% of local authorities already provide this dataset (and a total of 30% of local authorities provide a subset of these data) on a monthly to quarterly basis on a dedicated page on their websites or on an open data service. I would appreciate it if you could do the same.

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Chait

FOI Requests, Stockton on Tees Council

This email was classified as : OFFICIAL

Dear Gavin Chait

Freedom of Information Act 2000 / Environmental Information Regulations 2004 – Ref: 1440/1516

Thank you for your correspondence received on 14 March 2016.

Your request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (whichever is most appropriate). You will receive the information requested within the statutory timescale of 20 working days.

However, please note the Acts define a number of exemptions that may prevent release of the requested information. There will therefore be an assessment of your request to determine if any exemptions apply to the information requested. If the information cannot be released, or only released in part you will be informed of the reasons why, together with any rights of appeal.

If the information requested refers to a third party, they may be consulted before deciding whether it can be released.

Yours sincerely,

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council
Municipal Buildings, Church Road, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 1LD
(01642) 527455
[Stockton on Tees Council request email]
www.stockton.gov.uk

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FOI Requests, Stockton on Tees Council

1 Attachment

This email was classified as : OFFICIAL

Dear Gavin Chait

 

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Ref: 1440/1516

 

Thank you for your correspondence received on 14 March 2016. In response
to your request I can now provide the following information. 

 

Please provide me with a complete and up-to-date list of all

     business (non-residential) property rates data for your local

     authority, 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)

 

Please see the attached spread sheet with the information you have
requested. However, please note the following:-

 

o Details, including the address, have not been provided for sole
traders, private individuals or partnerships as this is considered to
be personal information and is exempt from disclosure under Section 40
of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 
o The date of occupation/vacancy has not been provided by reference to
section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. There are no system
reports that will extract this date and to provide it would be a
manual process. Each property on the list would need to be manually
checked on the computer system to find the date of occupation/vacancy
and this date would then need to be manually entered on the spread
sheet. This process is estimated to take 42 seconds for each of the
3754 properties listed. It is estimated that this would take longer
than 18 hours at £25.00 per hour and therefore the cost of locating,
retrieving and collating the information would exceed the “appropriate
limit” of £450 as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and
Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.  
o The amount shown in column H is the Net Charge payable for 2016/17 as
we have processed our Business Rates database through the annual
production of 2016-2017 bills. It is not possible to extract the net
charge for 2015-2016 during this interim period between years.
Therefore, should you wish to have the 2015-2016 charge, please submit
a further request after 1 April 2016. The data was extracted on the 24
March 2016.    

If you have any queries or concerns please contact me in the first
instance.

 

However, if you are unhappy with the way your request for information has
been handled, you can submit a complaint to [1][Stockton on Tees Council request email] 

 

If, after your complaint has been determined, you remain dissatisfied with
the handling of your request or complaint, you have a right to appeal to
the Information Commissioner at:

 

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.  Telephone: 0303 123 1113  Website:
[2]www.ico.gov.uk. 

The ICO does not make a charge for an appeal.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Alison Croymans

Customer Relations and Information Governance Assistant

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Municipal Buildings, Church Road, Stockton-on-Tees, TS18 1LD

(01642) 527455

[3][Stockton on Tees Council request email]

[4]www.stockton.gov.uk    

 

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