FOI Request February 2023

The request was successful.

Dear Great Yarmouth Borough Council,
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000.

In accordance with the provisions specified within the above Act I hereby request the following information.
All information requested relates to Business Rates.
This request for information falls within the parameters of the Act but if you require clarification on any of the points above or should you wish to discuss this further then please do not hesitate to contact me.
Required Information;- A list of all live business rates accounts with a 2017 list Rateable Value.
• Property Reference Number (also known as Billing Authority Reference Number) of the property on which the charge is made. Please note that this is not the Rate Demand or Rate Account Number.
• Current rateable value
• Account holder name
• Property address
• The billing address (where different to the property address), the contact telephone number and email address
• The date the current ratepayer became liable for the business rates – we do not require any historical account liability dates only the current ratepayers liability start date
• whether a property is empty or occupied
• Where a property is currently empty please provide the date the ratepayer became liable for empty rates
• Where there is an exemption on the account please provide the start and end date and type of exemption applied (e.g. listed building)
• Where there is a relief on the account please provide the date it was applied and the type of relief (e.g. Retail Discount)
• We do not require any personal information or sole traders.
Please provide the information in an electronic, spreadsheet format ideally excel. The Act requires that a response be provided within a period of 20 working days from the date hereof.

Yours faithfully,

Richard Roberts

Freedom of Information, Great Yarmouth Borough Council

Thank you for your email. Your request has been passed to the Corporate
Services Team who will review your request and a response will be sent to
you within 20 Working Days.

 

Please note that this email has been automatically generated and should
not be replied to.

 

You can review our Freedom of Information Policy here :-
https://www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk/foi

 

Kind Regards,

 

Corporate Services.

Freedom of Information, Great Yarmouth Borough Council

7 Attachments

Dear Richard,  

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – INFORMATION REQUEST – FOI-2223-630

 

Your request for information has now been considered and this email acts
as a partial refusal. Please see the exemption notice and explanation
below.  The information we can provide is attached.  

 

Please find the attached response to this FOI together with the added
explanation below:

 

•             The information supplied does not relate to individual
business rate account holders as this is considered to be personal
information and exempt under S40(2) Freedom of Information Act 2000

 

•             The data includes the Property Reference number but the
customer account number is excluded as it is used for customer
identification purposes.

 

•             Information relating to unoccupied properties is excluded. 
We can confirm that we do hold this information, however we do not provide
a list of Business Rates accounts of empty properties as this information
may prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, in particular,
criminal damage or illegal entry.  The following FOI decision supports
this in respect of property crimes.

 

Freedom of Information Decisions

 

Sheffield City Council v The Information Commissioner (EA/2018/0055) –
Request for all business property rates data

 

The appeal concerned a request for information relating to an up to date
list of all business property rates data. The Council refused to disclose
the requested information, citing section 31(1) (a) of the FOIA The
Commissioner’s decision is that the Council has correctly applied section
31(1) (a) of the FOIA

 

Section 31(1) (a) of FOIA states that:

 

“Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is
exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be
likely to, prejudice - (a) the prevention or detection of crime,”

 

 

The answers supplied in response to your request are for your personal
use.  They are copyright of Great Yarmouth Borough Council and may not be
copied, distributed, published or exploited for commercial purposes or
financial gain without the explicit written consent of Great Yarmouth
Borough Council.

 

Should you have any queries regarding the information provided, please do
not hesitate to contact us.  You have the right of appeal through the
Council’s internal complaints procedure by setting out the grounds of your
appeal in writing to the email address below addressed to the attention of
the Corporate Services Manager.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Wendy Halsey

Information Governance Officer
Corporate Services
Legal & Governance
Great Yarmouth Borough Council
Email: [1][Great Yarmouth Borough Council request email]
[2]www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk

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