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Flats sold off via Right To Buy RTB

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Dear Common Council of the City of London,

Please can you send me an excel document with the full address of every FLAT that has been sold off (they will have actually been let on 125 year leases) under Right To Buy within the local authority area. If possible please include the date they were sold.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Kaye

COL-EB-InformationOfficer, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Mr Kaye

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

The City of London (CoL) acknowledges receipt of your request for information of 14 November 2017.

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.

Yours sincerely,

Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

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COL-EB-InformationOfficer, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Mr Kaye,
 
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) - REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
 
Following your request of 14 November 2017, and our acknowledgement of 15
November, the City of London (CoL)
would be grateful if you would clarify your request with regard to the
time period you intend your request to encompass.
 
The statutory timescale for compliance with your request is placed on hold
until we have received your clarification.
 
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 link to a map on the CoL's website, which
shows the area covered:
[1]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: [2]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
[3]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
 
 
 

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Dear COL-EB-InformationOfficer,

Please provide the information for right to buys of flats between 1st January 1980 to the 31st December 1989.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Kaye

COL-EB-InformationOfficer, Common Council of the City of London

Dear Mr Kaye,
 
Thank you for your clarification.
 
We calculate the revised deadline for your request to be 20 December.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Compliance (FOI)
Comptroller & City Solicitor’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
[1]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk
 
 

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DCS FOI, Common Council of the City of London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Kaye,

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

 

Following receipt of your request for information on the 14 November 2017,
our request for clarification of 20 November, and your clarification of 28
November, the City of London (CoL) responds as follows.

 

Please see the attached list of Right to Buy (RTB) Sales within the
requested date range.  We have not disclosed the full address information.
The CoL considers that, in accordance with the FOIA section 40(2)
exemption ('personal information'), it should refuse to disclose a full
list of the addresses of each property sold under RTB. 

 

This exemption is applied as the CoL considers that should this
information be disclosed under the FOIA, it could be used to directly link
RTB purchases with identifiable individuals, with the assistance of other
publicly available information. As a result, such a disclosure would be a
breach of the First Principle under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA);
that is the fair and lawful processing of personal information. There is
no expectation by individuals of routine disclosure of such information
under the FOIA.

 

By way of further explanation, although you have requested what is
intended to be impersonal information, and have not sought to directly
obtain any personal information, we consider in this instance that, while
we can confirm that we hold the relevant information, it is correct to
refuse disclosure due to the low numbers of CoL social housing at each
postcode, and the low number of RTB sales on each social housing estate.
The CoL, on its website, already makes available the full addresses
(including post codes) of its social housing estates, together with the
number of properties on each estate. Sale prices are also publicly
available via other means, such as through the Land Registry.

 

Please note that a public authority has to consider a disclosure under the
FOIA as a disclosure to the world (as you will be aware, in making your
request via Whatdotheyknow). We note the Information Tribunal’s statement
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), which was also referred to by the
Information Commissioner (Information Commissioner's Decision Notice FS
50294078).

 

As a result, should the individual purchasers be identified with the
information through such a disclosure, then personal information could
also be disclosed, ie the fact of their having been a council tenant and
the financial aspects of the transaction, including any rough calculation
of present day value, or calculations based on comparison of the original
sale price with any subsequent sale price of the property.

 

The CoL considers that this position of non-disclosure is supported by the
guidance detailed in the Local Government Transparency Code 2015
(Department for Communities and Local Government) in that published
valuation information in relation to social housing is “…not disclosive of
individual properties…” (para 39), in order to comply with the DPA.

 

The value of individual social housing properties sold under RTB could be
disclosed through disclosure of the specific addresses of those properties
sold.

 

This guidance is on the basis that a sample size for each postcode
contains approximately 2,500 households, and that where a sample size is
smaller, as they are in relation to the CoL’s social housing postcodes,
adjustments should be made to prevent the identification of individual
properties through the information disclosed.

 

Indeed, in addition, the Code also advises that where disclosures of
property values relate to less than 10 properties, adjustments should
again be made to prevent the identification of individual properties
through the information disclosed. This also applies to all but one of the
CoL’s social housing estates.

 

The CoL concedes that there is some element of public interest in the
locations and sale prices of properties sold under RTB, but considers that
the data protection considerations override this, as would seem to be
implied by the Transparency Code.

 

In conclusion,  we do not consider that there are any conditions under
Schedule 2 of the DPA (which Schedule concerns conditions under Principle
1 for processing personal information) which would permit disclosure of
the detailed information requested because we consider it could be linked
to identifiable individuals.

 

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has managed your
enquiry, 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. Telephone:
(01625) 545700.  Website: [3]http://www.ico.org.uk/.

 

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and
port health authority.

 

The CoL holds the copyright in this communication. Its supply does not
give a right to re-use 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

 

Information Team

City of London

 

 

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References

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Robert Kaye please sign in and let everyone know.