Dear Broxtowe 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)

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.

Thank you and kind regards

Gavin Chait

Dear Arron Beckworth,

According to the Information Commissioners Office, organisations "can only charge for the marginal costs of reproducing, providing and disseminating the information. For example, if you provide a copy of a dataset on disk for re-use, you could charge for the cost of the disk and postage." In addition, organisations "may impose conditions on re-use but the conditions must be as open and non-restrictive as possible. The easiest way to do this is to use the Open Government Licence."

The sole purpose of our use of the data requested is in informing entrepreneurs and business seekers about opportunities in empty premises when they are advertised for new tenants. Further details on our activities are available at http://pikhaya.com, but our activity is supported by the Open Data Institute and we have received funding from the EU Open Data Incubator to develop this service.

I would ask that you consider that the public interest in economic development and improving opportunities for independent businesses and entrepreneurs far outweighs any fee you may charge. It is also precisely such fees which limit small business access to useful market intelligence and prejudices opportunities for small businesses over those for large chains and corporations.

Our intention is to support local economic development initiatives through the use of your data.

I ask that you reconsider your decision and make this data available to us under terms which permit our use and without charge.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Chait

Dear Broxtowe Borough Council,

Please note that my request for information from 11 February 2016 has not been responded to within the statutory time-frame. Please could you prioritize this as a matter of importance.

To repeat my original request:

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.

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Chait

Dear Broxtowe Borough Council,

My original FOI request and subsequent follow-up responses and queries have received little response. Please could you expedite this.

Please note that my request for information from 11 February 2016 has not been responded to within the statutory time-frame. Please could you prioritize this as a matter of importance.

To repeat my original request:

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)

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'.

According to the Information Commissioners Office, organisations "can only charge for the marginal costs of reproducing, providing and disseminating the information. For example, if you provide a copy of a dataset on disk for re-use, you could charge for the cost of the disk and postage." In addition, organisations "may impose conditions on re-use but the conditions must be as open and non-restrictive as possible. The easiest way to do this is to use the Open Government Licence."

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.

For proof of our correspondence, please see: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

Yours faithfully,

Gavin Chait

Dear Arron,

I've stated this a few times and would appreciate a direct response to the guidance from the Information Commissioners Office.

According to the Information Commissioners Office, organisations "can only charge for the marginal costs of reproducing, providing and disseminating the information. For example, if you provide a copy of a dataset on disk for re-use, you could charge for the cost of the disk and postage." In addition, organisations "may impose conditions on re-use but the conditions must be as open and non-restrictive as possible. The easiest way to do this is to use the Open Government Licence."

In other words, charging me £40 to re-use your data is not in keeping with the terms of the conditions set by the Act.

Please could you consider this.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Chait