Dear Jane Coates

Thank you for your request for information which I acknowledge was received by the District Council on 7 May 2020.

Your request is currently being considered. If the District Council is able to provide you with the information you have requested, then under the Freedom of Information Act you are entitled to receive it within 20 working days. However, at present, Warwick District Council’s priority is responding to coronavirus and supporting local communities across Warwick district, providing the help and services needed during this difficult time, therefore the response to your request may take longer, but it will be sent to you in due course.

For your information, the FOI Act defines a number of exemptions which may prevent release of some or all of the information you have requested. The District Council will assess your information request in light of the exemptions. If exemptions do apply, then the District Council may decide not to release all, or part, of the information you have requested. You will be informed if this is the case.

If the information you request contains reference to a third party then they may be consulted prior to a decision being taken by the District Council as to whether to release the information to you. You will be kept informed if this is the case.

The District Council will not charge a fee to provide you with the information you have requested, provided the cost of dealing with your request is less than £450. If it appears likely that your request will cost more than £450 to deal with then I will write to you again asking if you are willing to pay the fees incurred, and setting out clearly what those fees will be, in accordance with the FOI Act.

If you have any queries or should you wish to make a complaint about the manner in which your request is being dealt with then please do not hesitate to contact me at the above address in the first instance. Any complaints will be dealt with under the Council’s corporate complaints procedure.

Further information about your rights under the Freedom of Information Act, is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office (0303 123 1113) or on their website www.ico.org.uk, and on the District Council’s website.

Yours sincerely

Julia Wyncoll
Corporate Support Assistant
Chief Executive’s Office

Corporate Support Team
Warwick District Council
Riverside House
Milverton Hill
Royal Leamington Spa
CV32 5HZ

show quoted sections

Good Afternoon

Please find attached the details as of 13/05/2020

In respect of your FOI request detailed below, I am unable to disclose the full information requested based on the recent case law Westminster v Chait in October 2019.

The Council has considered the public interest of being transparent and providing this information against the need to protect empty properties against crime, vandalism and fraudulent claims. Releasing the information you have requested could mean that those with criminal intentions become aware of vacant properties in the district and target them for crime, fraud and vandalism.

We also currently will not release information as to which businesses have reliefs applied to them. This is due to the increased risk of fraudulent claims for the Covid 19 grants being made with such information. You can re-submit this part of the request once the grants have all been distributed and we will re-look to see if we are able to provide this information then to you. You can also find information that relates to the amount of grants we have paid out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

This information is exempt under section 31 (prejudice to law enforcement) of the Freedom of Information Act and is therefore being withheld.

Warwick District Council now considers that it has complied with your request in full. However, you have a right to appeal if you are dissatisfied with our response. Requests for an internal review must be made in writing, and within 40 calendar days of this response being issued to you. When requesting an internal review, please include your reference number, the date of your original request and your contact details. Please also include an explanation of why you are dissatisfied with our response. Requests for an internal review should be sent to:

Information Governance
Warwick District Council
Riverside House
Milverton Hill
Leamington Spa
CV32 5RU

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF.
Phone: 0303 123 1113 Website: https://Ico.org.uk

Kind Regards

Caroline Walton
Revenues & Recovery Manager
Revenues | Finance

show quoted sections

Dear Jane,

Thank you for your request for an internal review which has now been
completed by a solicitor acting on my behalf and I have accepted the
findings of their review in full.

The original request was for current business rates account data for your
local authority as follows (with exclusions of personal data and empty
properties).

·         Property Reference

·         Liable Party Name

·         Property Address

·         Rateable Value

·         Property Description

·         Billing or Correspondence address

·         Liability Start Date

·         Current entitlement to any Reliefs or Discounts (do not include
details of any empty property reliefs)

·         Start date of the entitlement to any current reliefs or
discounts

Warwick District Council responded on 13 May 2020 which included an
attachment that included, property reference, address, rateable value and
property description. The Council therefore withheld from disclosure of:

o Liable Party Name
o Billing or Correspondence address
o Liability Start Date
o Current entitlement to any Reliefs or Discounts
o Start date of the entitlement to any current reliefs or discounts

The above information was refused in respect of Section 31(1)(a) of the
Freedom of Information Act. This only applies where disclosure of the
information would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or
detection of crime. This means that the prejudice must be real, actual, or
of substance, and there must be a causal link between the disclosure and
the harm that would be caused.

From the internal review it is clear that the disclosure of the
information would create a significant risk of fraud in relation to
COVID-19-related grants. I am of the view to explain further details of
this would also increase that risk of fraud.

There is a requirement to undertake a public interest test on the
application of this exemption. This Council must balance the public
interest in disclosing the information against the public interest in
withholding it. There is a public interest in understanding how businesses
are taxed, including any reliefs or discounts provided to businesses. As
you set out in your original request, public money is being used to
provide grants and discounts to companies, which of course is of interest
to taxpayers and the wider public. However, there is also a clear public
interest in protecting society from the impact of crime. An increase of
fraudulent grant applications would risk public money being diverted to
criminals, as well as increase the workload of Council officers in
detecting fraudulent applications. In the circumstances, at least whilst
the grants are available, in my view the public interest lies in
withholding the information

Therefore, I am of the view that this information should not be disclosed.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the internal review you may
appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office, either on line
[1]www.ico.org.uk, or at the following address:

FOI Compliance Team (complaints)

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

For clarification I recognise that you did not request the details of
empty properties and that has not been considered in respect of the
decision above.

Graham Leach

Democratic Services Manager and

Deputy Monitoring Officer

Democratic Services, Warwick District Council, Riverside House,

Milverton Hill, Royal Leamington Spa, CV32 5HZ

Tel: 01926 456114  [2]www.warwickdc.gov.uk

*Please do not print this email unless you really need to.

[3]cid:image001.png@01D62859.6ADD0B80

show quoted sections