Complete Non-Residential / Business Property Rates Data

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Hillingdon Borough Council should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Hillingdon Borough 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

AF FOI, Hillingdon Borough Council

Dear Mr Chait
I am writing in response to your request for information under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 we have 20 working days to
respond to your request. Therefore the deadline for our response is 13
April 2016, but Hillingdon Council will do their best to respond prior to
this date.

Your request has been allocated the following reference FOI/4982141. 
Please remember to include this reference in any future correspondence on
this matter.

 

If we require further information from you in order to assist us in
responding to your request, or if we require a fee to be paid before we
can respond we will contact you promptly.

Yours sincerely

Jane Menzies

A&F Business Support - 3E/02 

London Borough of Hillingdon

Civic Centre

High Street

Uxbridge

Middlesex

UB8 1UW

Tel:  [1]01895 556063

Email:  [2][email address]

Web:  [3]hillingdon.gov.uk

Hillingdon Council routinely monitors the content of emails sent and
received via its network for the purposes of ensuring compliance with its
policies and procedures. The contents of this message are for the
attention and use of the intended addressee only. If you are not the
intended recipient or addressee, or the person responsible for sending the
message you may not copy, forward, disclose or otherwise use it or any
part of it in any way. To do so may be unlawful. If you receive this email
by mistake please advise the sender immediately. Where opinions are
expressed they are not necessarily those of the London Borough of
Hillingdon. Service by email is not accepted unless by prior agreement.

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/tel:01895%20556063
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://hillingdon.gov.uk/

FOI, Hillingdon Borough Council

Re:  FOI 4982141

 

Dear Mr. Chait

 

I am writing in response to your recent request.

 

I understand you are seeking the following information:

 

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)

 

S21 of the Freedom Information Act 2000 provides that information is
exempt if it is already accessible by other means.  Please see link below:

[1]http://www.hillingdon.gov.uk/article/905...

 

If you have any queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to
contact me.

 

If you wish to request an internal review of our response you should
write, within 2 months, to:

 

Office Managing Partner, Legal Services, Civic Centre, High St, Uxbridge,
UB8 1UW (or via email to [2][Hillingdon Borough Council request email] marked for the attention
of the Office Managing Partner).

 

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

 

Christine Bliss-Johnson

Assistant to the Freedom of Information Officer

Legal Services (3E 04)

London Borough of Hillingdon

Civic Centre

High Street

Uxbridge

UB8 1UW

01895 55(6923)

 

 

show quoted sections

Dear FOI,

Thank you very much for your link to the data. I have two queries.

The first is related to my original request in which I asked if the Billing Authority Reference code could be provided along with your data. This permits cross-referencing between different data series (especially with the Valuations Office register).

Could you please include the Billing Authority Code with your release otherwise it is all but impossible to reuse your data.

Secondly, could you advise on how often you update your data?

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Chait

FOI, Hillingdon Borough Council

Dear Mr Chait

I am writing in response to your email below.

Thank you for your feedback on this matter.

The Billing Authority reference code can be obtained from the VOA website
http://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/ - but I will feedback your comments to the
relevant team.

In regards to the update - this is the first time this data has been
published. It is my understanding this will be refreshed shortly.

If you have any queries regarding this matter please do not hesitate to
contact me.

Richard Ingle
Data Protection &
Freedom of Information Officer
Legal Services (3E 04)
London Borough of Hillingdon
Civic Centre
High Street
Uxbridge
UB8 1UW
01895 55(6923)

If you wish to request an internal review of our response you should write,
within 2 months, to:

Office Managing Partner, Legal Services, Civic Centre, High St, Uxbridge,
UB8 1UW (or via email to [Hillingdon Borough Council request email] marked for the attention of
the Office Managing Partner).

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the
right to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

show quoted sections

Dear Richard Ingle,

Yes, I know the Billing Authority Reference is available from the VOA. That's not my request. I want to reconcile your data with their database. The only way to do that is to match rows of data from your published data with queries in their data.

The only way to conduct such reconciliation is with a common field for cross-referencing. That is the Billing Authority Reference. If your data does not have the code, then no reconciliation is possible.

I would appreciate it if it could be added back into your data.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Chait