Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your recent request for information.

This request has been allocated reference number: F00020836

The Contact Officer for Governance will respond to your request in line
with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We will respond to your request
as soon as possible and no later than 09/12/2022. In some cases, however,
we may be unable to achieve this deadline. If this occurs, we will advise
you of the likely timescale within which the response will be provided. We
will contact you as soon as possible should we need to clarify your
request.

Should you send any further correspondence about this request, please
include the reference number and either email it to [Flintshire County Council request email],
or post it to Freedom of Information, Flintshire County Council,
Information Governance, County Hall, Mold, Flintshire, CH7 6NB.

Kind regards

Contact Officer

Privacy Notice

Your data will be processed by Flintshire County Council only for the
specific purposes of processing your information request. The processing
of your personal data is necessary in order to complete your information
request in compliance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004. 

Flintshire County Council will not share your data with any other
organisation. We will share your data with other relevant departments if
necessary to respond to your request. Flintshire County Council will
retain your data for 3 years from the date your request is complete.

If you feel that Flintshire County Council has mishandled your personal
data at any time you can make a complaint to the Councils Data Protection
Officer by emailing [email address] 

For further information on our complaints procedure please follow this
link
https://www.flintshire.gov.uk/cy/PDFFile...

Alternatively you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office by
visiting their website or by calling their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

For further information about how Flintshire County Council processes
personal data and your rights please see our privacy notice on our website
-
https://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/Residen...

FOI Contact Officer

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FOI Contact Officer  |  Swyddog Cyswllt Rhyddid Gwybodaeth
Governance  |  Llywodraethu
Flintshire County Council   |  Cyngor Sir y Fflint  

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Email   |  Ebost   |  [Flintshire County Council request email]  
http://www.flintshire.gov.uk   |  http://www.siryfflint.gov.uk  
http://www.twitter.com/flintshirecc   |  http://www.twitter.com/csyfflint
 

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The contents of this communication and any enclosed documents may be
subject to copyright protection. It has been sent to you for your
information and you may use it for any non-commercial research you may be
doing or undertaking. Its contents can also be used for the purposes of
news reporting. Any other re-use, for example, commercial publication or
publication on a website, requires the permission of this Council. If you
wish to re-use this information please contact us, letting us know how you
wish to re-use it and what the intended audience will be so that we can
consider your request. This information should be sent to: The Information
Governance Manager, Information Governance Team, Flintshire County
Council, County Hall, Mold, Flintshire CH7 6NB, or
[email address].

If you are dissatisfied with the Council’s handling of your request for
information, you can ask for an internal review within 2 months of the
date of this response. Where your complaint is a complex one it may not be
possible to deal with it within the above timescales. In such a situation
a progress report will be sent within the above timescales.

Requests for an internal review should be addressed to the Council’s
Information Governance Manager at:

Information Governance Team, County Hall, Mold, CH7 6NA

Or by emailing [Flintshire County Council request email]

Please remember to quote your original request’s reference number.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at the following address:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

However, please note that the Commissioner will not normally investigate a
complaint until it has been through our own internal review process.

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Gellir cynnwys y ddogfen gyfathrebu hon ac unrhyw ddogfennau amgaeêdig yn
amodol ar hawlfraint. Hyn anfonwyd atoch er gwybodaeth i chi a gallwch ei
ddefnyddio ar gyfer unrhyw ymchwil anfasnachol yr ydych yn ei wneud neu
ymgymryd â. Gellir hefyd defnyddio ei gynnwys at ddibenion adrodd
newyddion. Os oes angen i chi ailddefnyddio’r wybodaeth mewn unrhyw fordd
arall, er enghraifft, cyhoeddi neu gyhoeddi masnachol ar wefan, mae angen
caniatâd gyn y Cyngor. Os hoffech ailddefnyddio’r wybodaeth, cysylltwch â
ni, gan roi gwybod i ni sut rydych chi yn bwriadu ei ailddefnyddio a beth
fydd y gynulleidfa a fwriadwyd fel y gallwn ystyriwch eich cais. Dylid
anfon y wybodaeth hon at: Rheolwr Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth, Tîm
Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth, Neuadd Y Sir, Yr Wyddgrug, Sir Y Fflint, CH7 6NB,
neu drwy e-bostio [email address].

Os ydych yn anfodlon â’r modd y mae’r Cyngor wedi ymdrin eich cais am
wybodaeth, gallwch ofyn am adolygiad mewnol o fewn 2 fis o dyddiad yr
ymateb hwn. Lle mae’ch cwyn yn un cymhleth efallai na fydd yn bosib delio
ag ef o fewn yr amserlen uchod. Mewn sefyllfa o’r fath, bydd adroddiad
cynnydd yn cael ei anfon o fewn yr amserlen.

Dylech anfon cais am adolygiad mewnol i’r Rheolwr Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth
y Cyngor:

Team Llywodraethu Gwybodaeth, Neuadd y Sir, Yr Wyddgrug, Sir Y Fflint, CH7
6NB

Neu drwy e-bostio [Flintshire County Council request email]

Cofiwch ddyfynnu rhif cyfeirnod eich cais gwreiddiol.

Mae gennych hawl hefyd i gwyno wrth y Comisiynydd Gwybodaeth. Gallwch
gysylltu â’r Comisiynydd Gwybodaeth yn y cyfeiriad canlynol:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Fodd bynnag, dylech nodi nad yw’r Comisiynydd fel arfer yn ymchwilio i
gwyn nes ei fod wedi bod drwy ein proses adolygu fewnol.

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Dear Mr Chait

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request dated 11^th November
2022, regarding business rates.

The Council holds this information, but it is exempt under Section 21 of
the FOIA 'Information accessible to applicant by other means' as
information about businesses liable for non-domestic rates is published on
the Council's website. This was last updated on the 1^st November 2022.

The link to the relevant page on the Council's website is:

[1]https://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/Dataset...

Start dates are not currently easily extracted from the system, and
Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse
requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed
the appropriate limit, which for Local Government is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the Council holds the information, locating,
retrieving and extracting the information.

Flintshire County Council would not be able to provide the start dates for
every record listed in the dataset, as this would involve going through
every case file and then manually extracting.  Given that there are 3,701
records, this would involve manually extracting the liability date and
type per record, taking one officer approximately 2 minutes per record,
which would take in excess of 123 hours.  Within the time limit of 18
hours, we could provide the start dates for a maximum of 540 records.  If
you would like to narrow down your request and let us know which records
you would like the start date for, we could provide you with a maximum of
540 records.

The Council is also unable to provide you with the requested information
in relation to vacant properties on the basis indicated below.

The Council considers that this exemption applies for the following
reasons:-

The council considers that the release of the details requested could
prejudice the prevention of crime and the information requested is
therefore exempt under [2]Section 31(1) (a) of the Act which provides
information is exempt if its disclosure would be likely to prejudice the
prevention of crime.  This is believed to apply to your request because
there are an increasing number of ‘fraudulent’ refund schemes operating
across the UK that target Council Tax and Business Rates customers and the
release of this information could further escalate this problem. All
ratepayers transactional data is currently held in a very secure
environment and this would not be maintained if the information were
released into the public domain. The council has received similar requests
from other companies for this information and to release it would increase
risk of fraud whereby third parties, other than the actual ratepayers,
could attempt to claim the refund fraudulently.  The council therefore
concludes that the public interest in withholding this information
outweighs the public interest in disclosing as to do so could result in
criminal activities.

 It is therefore considered that the disclosure of the addresses would be
likely to prejudice the prevention of crime as it is believed that if a
list of the addresses were to be disclosed then these properties would
become more vulnerable to squatting, associated crime and other forms of
criminal activity including but not limited to criminal damage, extraction
of electricity and the stripping of empty properties and would increase
the social and economic costs in these areas as a result.

In debating if the use of this exemption is applicable we have considered
the public interest test.

The arguments for releasing this information are as follows:  
 
To release the information would assist the general public interest in
openness. Important aspects of which would include the increase in public
debate concerning empty properties and how they are secured within
Flintshire.

While the arguments for not releasing this information are as follows:
There is a strong public interest in avoiding the likely prejudice to the
prevention of crime. Tackling these types of crimes would involve a
significant strain on public expense and it is in the public interest to
ensure that public resources are used cost-effectively. 

The public interest in avoiding damage to property;

The efficient use of public and police resources;

The potential for indirect consequences of crime, for example the impact
on neighbouring properties of crimes perpetrated on the empty properties.

It is felt that the public interest in preventing crime from being
committed outweighs the public interest releasing the information.

I hope this information is helpful to you but if you are dissatisfied with
any aspects of this response, please refer to the Council's FOI Complaints
Procedure below.

Kind regards,

Lewis Hughes

Local Taxation
____________________________________________________________________________________
Revenues Services | Gwasanaethau Refeniw
Governance |  Llywodraethu
Flintshire County Council | Cyngor Sir y Fflint
____________________________________________________________________________________
Tel | Ffôn | 01352 704848
Email | Ebost | [3][email address]

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