Dear Mr Chait,

Thank you for your email of 30 March 2017, to the City of London (CoL), below.

Please note that section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) states as follows:

"8.—(1) In this Act any reference to a 'request for information' is a Request for
reference to such a request which—
… (b) states the name of the applicant …"

Before we progress your request, please would you confirm on whose behalf your request is made. In considering this, please note the guidance “Recognising a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (Section 8)” (version 1, 26 Feb 2014), published on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at:

http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/guid...<http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/guid...>

The guidance states that, to be a valid request, “the request must state the real name of the party on whose behalf the agent is acting … A request which only includes the real name of the agent will be invalid”.

It is clear that the section 12 and section 14(1) provisions of the Act could be circumvented where the party on whose behalf the agent is acting is not stated.

We note that you state “we appealed” and “we intend”. Once we have received from you the name of the company or organisation on whose behalf you are acting, we can progress your request as a valid request.

Yours sincerely,

Information Officer
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020 7332 1209
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk>

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Dear Mr Chait,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The City of London (CoL) acknowledges receipt of your request for information of 30 March 2017, and your clarification of the same date as to on whose behalf you are submitting the request.

Public authorities are required to respond to requests within the statutory timescale of 20 working days beginning from the first working day after they receive a request. The Act does not always require public authorities to disclose the information which they hold.

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and port health authority. The CoL is the local and police authority for the “Square Mile”, ie the historic City of London, and not for London as a whole. Please see the following page containing a link to a map (Explore the City), which shows the local authority area covered by the CoL:
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Pag....
The CoL does have some functions, including Port Health Authority functions, which extend beyond the City boundary. For further information please see: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk>.

Yours sincerely,

Information Officer
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk>

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Dear Mr Chait,

I write further to your request for information of 30th March 2017, your
further clarification of the same date and the City’s two replies also of
30^th March.

In your request you asked for: “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 Reference Code (linking the property to the VOA
database reference)

- 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)

If you are unable to provide an absolute “Occupation / Vacancy” status,
please provide the Exemptions and / or Reliefs that a particular property
may be receiving”.

The City of London responds as follows:

Attached is a list of all non-domestic properties contained in the Rating
List for the City of London. It includes the billing authority reference,
full property address, rateable value, VO description and account start
date. The account start date is the date the current rate account was
opened and generally this will be the same as the actual liability date.
However, in some cases a new account might have been opened even though
the ratepayer did not change, such as following a split or merger of
assessments. It is not possible to verify every date individually.

The list was produced at the end of March 2017 and therefore contains the
rateable values which applied at the time, i.e. the values contained in
the 2010 rating list. A full revaluation has taken place effective from
1^st April 2017. A list will be produced with the current 2017 values in
the next few days and I shall send it to you as soon as it is available.

There is an exemption under Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) which we consider applies to the remainder of this request,
i.e. indicating whether property is empty or occupied. This section
provides that information is exempt from disclosure if such disclosure
would prejudice the “prevention or detection of crime”.

We consider that the disclosure of information about whether or not
properties are empty puts those properties at risk from crime, as an empty
property is more likely to be the target of, and vulnerable to, crime than
is an occupied property. Hence we consider that disclosure presents a
likely prejudice to the prevention and detection of crime. In identifying
which property is occupied, we would of course be identifying empty
property at the same time.

This exemption is subject to the public interest test. With regard to
identifying empty properties, it could be considered to be in the public
interest to disclose such information in order to assist, for example, in
encouraging the use of empty properties. The exemption was considered by
the Information Tribunal in the case of Mr. Yiannis Voyias v the
Information Commissioner and Camden  EA/2011/0007). The First Tier
Tribunal upheld non-disclosure in relation to empty properties owned by
individuals, but instructed the London Borough of Camden to provide copies
of lists both of properties managed by the Council and of private
properties where a non individual “is listed as being either the owner or
as having a material interest in the property”.  This decision was
appealed to the Upper Tribunal (case no. GIA/2986/2011) and in a decision
on 6^th June 2012, the Tribunal set aside the original decision of the
First Tier Tribunal and remitted the case to the First Tier Tribunal for
rehearing by a differently constituted panel. The First Tier Tribunal
re-heard the case and in a unanimous decision dated 22^nd January 2013,
dismissed the  appeal, i.e Camden need not disclose the information.
Paragraph 55 of the decision states “The relatively small weight that the
public interest in disclosure bears does not, in our view, come close to
equalling the public interest in preventing the categories of crime we
have identified in this decision. Accordingly the public interest in
maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure. The
Council was therefore entitled to refuse to disclose the information
requested by the Appellant.”

In accordance with the above decision, therefore, we apply the Section 31
exemption to disclosure about all empty properties. In your request you
refer to a more recent decision by the Information Commissioner. There
have been various decisions by the commissioner some of which appear to
contradict each other. However, the Camden case supersedes these as it is
a decision by the tribunal, not the commissioner,  and we consider that
the exemption applies.  

Finally, I should mention that a public authority is compelled under the
FOIA to consider any disclosure made under the Act as a disclosure to the
world. The Information Tribunal has stated that “Disclosure under [the]
FOIA is effectively an unlimited disclosure to the public as a whole,
without conditions” (Information Tribunal Appeal Decision EA/2006/0011 &
0013 of 8 Jan 2007). Therefore I would have to consider any disclosure to
you as being a disclosure to the public as a whole and I cannot consider
the reason for your request.

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has managed your
enquiry under the FOIA, please make your complaint in writing to email
address: [1][email address]. For a link to the CoL’s FOI
complaints procedure, please visit the following page:
[2]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback, at the end of which is located the
FOI complaints procedure. If, having used the CoL’s FOI Complaints
Procedure, you are still dissatisfied, you may request the Information
Commissioner to investigate. Please contact: Information Commissioner,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Tel: (01625)
545700. Website:

[3]http://www.ico.org.uk/

The FOIA applies to the City of London as a local authority, police
authority and port health authority.

The City of London holds the copyright in this email. The supply of it
does not give a right to re-use it in a way that would infringe that
copyright, for example, by making copies, publishing and issuing copies to
the public or to any other person. Brief extracts of any of the material
may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of
research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and
news reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of the copyright owner.

Yours sincerely,

Head of Revenues,

City of London

P.O.Box 270, Guildhall, London, EC2P 2EJ

Tel: 020 7332 1387   

Website: [4]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

References

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Dear Mr Chait,

I refer to my e-mail of 28^th April 2017 in response to your request of
30^th March and  attach a further list of all non-domestic properties
contained in the Rating List for the City of London.

This is similar to the list sent on 28^th April but contains the new
rateable values in the 2017 Rating List, effective from 1^st April. As in
the previous list, the account start date is the date the current rate
account was opened and generally this will be the same as the actual
liability date. However, in some cases a new account might have been
opened even though the ratepayer did not change, such as following a split
or merger of assessments. It is not possible to verify every date
individually.

Yours sincerely,

Head of Revenues,

City of London

P.O.Box 270, Guildhall, London, EC2P 2EJ

Tel: 020 7332 1387   

Website: [1]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

References

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