HMO licences
Dear Newport City Council,
Please could you provide me with the following for each licensed “House in Multiple Occupation” (HMO), from HMO registers that you have prepared or associated information:
- Licence identifier/number
- Licence issue date
- Licence expiry date
- First line of the address of the property
- Postcode of the property
- Name of license holder,
- If the license holder is a company, partnership or trust, their registration number
- Whether the license holder is an owner of the property
- Names of any other owners of the property
- Rent Smart Wales registration number of the landlord of the property, if known
- Whether the license holder "has control" of the property
- Name of the manager/managing agent/letting agent of the property, if it is not the licence holder
- Rent Smart Wales licence number of the manager/managing agent/letting agent of the property, if known
- Maximum number of occupants
And the following, if held:
- Unique property reference number (UPRN)
- Easting and Northing, or Latitude and Longitude
- Type of property (e.g. “Flat in multiple occupation” or “A purpose built block of flats”)
- Type of building (e.g. “End terrace house” or “Semi-detached”)
- Age of the building/when it was originally built (e.g. “1946 - 1964”)
- Total number of bedrooms (including bedsits if these are captured seperately)
- Total number of bathrooms/shower rooms
- Total number of toilets (including toilets in bathrooms/shower rooms if these are captured - separately from standalone toilets)
- Total number of kitchens
- How many storeys the property has (it is expected that this will include ground floor, basements etc)
I would be grateful if you could provide this as an Excel workbook (XLSX file) or CSV file.
I am happy to discuss refining the request if this would ensure that responding to it does not exceed the cost limit. If you have any concerns about release of personal data - although the public nature of HMO registers and the Rent Smart Wales register should assuage these - I’m happy to discuss suppression of non-corporate (e.g. company) names for some items.
Yours faithfully,
Adam Watkins
Dear Sir/Madam
Thank you for your request for information about :
HMO Licences
Received on 18/06/2021
This request has been formally logged in our FOI management system and has been assigned the reference REQ09163.
You should receive a reply to your request within the statutory time limit of 20 working days.
Please remember to quote the reference number REQ09163 in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
Information Management
Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg, Saesneg neu yn y ddwy iaith. Byddwn yn cyfathrebu â chi yn ôl eich dewis. Ni fydd gohebu yn Gymraeg yn arwain at oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in English or Welsh or both, and will respond to you according to your preference. Corresponding in Welsh will not lead to delay.
Disclaimer/Ymwadiad
This email contains information intended for the addressee only and may be confidential, the subject of legal or professional privilege, or be otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose, distribute or copy the email to any other party. This email and any attached file are the property of Newport City Council.
When you email Newport City Council, you consent to the Council monitoring and reading any such emails for the purposes of security and legislative compliance. For the full disclaimer please access http://www.newport.gov.uk/disclaimer.
Mae'r e-bost hwn yn cynnwys gwybodaeth y bwriedir ar gyfer y derbynnydd yn unig a gall fod yn gyfrinachol, yn destun ragorfraint gyfreithiol neu broffesiynol, neu fel arall wedi’i diogelu rhag cael ei rhyddhau. Os nad chi yw derbynnydd bwriadedig y neges hon, a fyddech cystal â rhoi gwybod i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a pheidio â datgelu, dosbarthu neu gopïo’r e-bost i unrhyw barti arall. Mae’r e-bost hon ac unrhyw ffeiliau atodedig yn eiddo i Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd.
Pan fyddwch yn anfon e-bost at Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd, rydych yn cydsynio i’r Cyngor fonitro a darllen unrhyw e-byst o’r fath at ddibenion cydymffurfio â diogelwch ac â deddfwriaeth. I weld yr ymwadiad llawn ewch i http://www.newport.gov.uk/ymwadiad
Dear Adam Watkins
Thank you for your recent request for information which I have enclosed
below for ease of reference. Your request has been treated in accordance
with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and/or the Environmental
Information Regulations 2004.
Your Request : REQ09163
I can confirm that we do hold information that falls within the scope of
your request. The answers to your questions have been provided the
document attached. Please note the information below in red.
- Name of license holder - Personal information cannot be provided due
to data protection
If the license holder is a company, partnership or trust, their
registration number - We do not hold this information
- Whether the license holder is an owner of the property - it would take
longer than 18 hours to go through each application to find and supply the
information, because we do not have a system to do this for us
- Names of any other owners of the property - We are unable to disclose
this information due to advice received from the ICO as it contains
personal data
- Rent Smart Wales registration number of the landlord of the property, if
known - RSW should be consulted by the applicant
- Rent Smart Wales licence number of the manager/managing agent/letting
agent of the property, if known - RSW should be consulted by the applicant
You can obtain Rent Smart Wales information directly from them via
[1]https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlo...
as this is run by Cardiff City Council.
And the following, if held:
- Age of the building/when it was originally built (e.g.“1946 - 1964”) -
we do not hold this information
I hope this provides the information you were looking for; if there is any
further information that we can provide, please submit a further request.
If you have any queries about this email or if you are unhappy with the
service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a
complaint or request a review of our decision, please contact me.
If you are not content with the subsequent outcome of your complaint, you
may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the
Councils complaints procedure. The Information Commissioner can be
contacted at: The Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
For future reference, all Freedom of Information requests can now be
submitted via the link below.
[2]www.newport.gov.uk/foi
Regards
Corporate Admin Supervisor
Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg, Saesneg neu yn y ddwy
iaith. Byddwn yn cyfathrebu â chi yn ôl eich dewis. Ni fydd gohebu yn
Gymraeg yn arwain at oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in English or Welsh or both, and will
respond to you according to your preference. Corresponding in Welsh will
not lead to delay.
Disclaimer/Ymwadiad
This email contains information intended for the addressee only and may be
confidential, the subject of legal or professional privilege, or be
otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient
of this message, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose,
distribute or copy the email to any other party. This email and any
attached file are the property of Newport City Council.
When you email Newport City Council, you consent to the Council monitoring
and reading any such emails for the purposes of security and legislative
compliance. For the full disclaimer please access
http://www.newport.gov.uk/disclaimer.
Mae'r e-bost hwn yn cynnwys gwybodaeth y bwriedir ar gyfer y derbynnydd yn
unig a gall fod yn gyfrinachol, yn destun ragorfraint gyfreithiol neu
broffesiynol, neu fel arall wedi’i diogelu rhag cael ei rhyddhau. Os nad
chi yw derbynnydd bwriadedig y neges hon, a fyddech cystal â rhoi gwybod
i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a pheidio â datgelu, dosbarthu neu gopïo’r e-bost i
unrhyw barti arall. Mae’r e-bost hon ac unrhyw ffeiliau atodedig yn eiddo
i Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd.
Pan fyddwch yn anfon e-bost at Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd, rydych yn cydsynio
i’r Cyngor fonitro a darllen unrhyw e-byst o’r fath at ddibenion
cydymffurfio â diogelwch ac â deddfwriaeth. I weld yr ymwadiad llawn ewch
i http://www.newport.gov.uk/ymwadiad
References
Visible links
1. https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlo...
2. http://www.newport.gov.uk/foi
Dear Newport City Council,
Thank you very much for your response. You’ve clearly attempted to provide something useful in response to my request.
Nevertheless, I feel I must request an internal review of some of your decisions; please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Newport Council’s response to my request for information (ref REQ09163).
The response I have received does not answer all the questions I asked, and I do not agree with the application of an exemption withholding all or part of the information I requested.
I note that the response doesn’t clearly set out the specific sections of the Act/exemptions being deployed, but I appreciate that the council have tried to set out the reasoning. I have interpreted refusals relating to “personal information” and “personal data” as citing a section 40 exemption. There are several pieces of evidence that suggest that a section 40 exemption is not applicable to the information requested.
First, that versions of the relevant information to which the section 40 exemption is being applied has previously been disclosed on the internet by local authorities in response to other individual requests (e.g. Cardiff Council FOI010182, 30th May 2017) and is routinely being disclosed by others (e.g. Barnet Council, Gravesham Council). This indicates that there is no violation of personal data rights by disclosure of this information.
Second, that the local authority would make the relevant information concerned available by other means - by inspection of the register at council headquarters - indicates that any violation of personal data rights is not a consequence of disclosure, per se. (However, I also note that a section *21* exemption would not be applicable in this case for other reasons, particularly under the current circumstances. One of these is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the implications for "reasonable" accessibility involving travel, as we enter the "third wave" and relaxations of coronavirus rules are delayed. Another would be that my request includes information that is both likely held by the council and is uncontentious - e.g. with respect to the claimed section 40 exemption - but not inspectable on the physical public register - e.g. Easting and Northing of the property, number of storeys, some of which I appreciate that the council has supplied to date. ICO suggests referring to EA/2006/0030 when considering requests for more detailed information relating to something in the public domain, and reasoning from this case supports responding to the request with disclosure.)
Third, information similar in nature to the information concerned is now routinely disclosed elsewhere, including electronically. This would include Rent Smart Wales's searchable registers of immediate landlords and licenses of managing agents, and HM Land Registry’s downloadable "UK companies that own property in England and Wales" data set. These are not, of course, identical to the information requested on HMO licenses, but are very similar in so far as they concern the names of property owners and managing agents, and their links to specific properties. More broadly, these examples also clearly establish current expectations of fair processing of this sort of information, and demonstrate how these may have evolved in recent years. (ICO advice that has not been given extremely recently is unlikely to reflect these expectations.)
For the sake of completeness, I note that the evidence set out above would also suggest that various other possible exemptions are also inapplicable - because previous and similar disclosures demonstrate that disclosure of this information is lawful and justified, that the public interest in disclosure is clearly sufficiently large where this test is relevant, and that local authorities’ legitimate interests in disclosure (e.g. transparency in the conduct of HMO licensing) outweigh the interests of licensees where this test is relevant.
There are some requested data items missing from the response (e.g. “Total number of toilets”,“Age of the building/when it was originally built”) that I believe are actually held by the council, because they appear on the council’s HMO application form. I appreciate the council might not actually store this information in a way that you can provide it within the appropriate limit of responding to a request; if this is the case, I’d be grateful if the council clarified this.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/h...
Yours faithfully,
Adam Watkins
Dear Adam Watkins,
Thank you for your email. I have noted your comments and have logged this
as a request for an internal review. Your new reference number is
REQ09247.
Whilst there is no stipulation within the Freedom of Information Act for
timescales for internal reviews, the Council endeavours to complete these
within 20 working days of receipt, however we will respond as soon as the
information is provided. Further information on internal reviews of
requests for information can be found on the Information Commissioner’s
website at [1]http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/off....
Regards
Jodi
Information Management
Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg, Saesneg neu yn y ddwy
iaith. Byddwn yn cyfathrebu â chi yn ôl eich dewis. Ni fydd gohebu yn
Gymraeg yn arwain at oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in English or Welsh or both, and will
respond to you according to your preference. Corresponding in Welsh will
not lead to delay.
Disclaimer/Ymwadiad
This email contains information intended for the addressee only and may be
confidential, the subject of legal or professional privilege, or be
otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient
of this message, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose,
distribute or copy the email to any other party. This email and any
attached file are the property of Newport City Council.
When you email Newport City Council, you consent to the Council monitoring
and reading any such emails for the purposes of security and legislative
compliance. For the full disclaimer please access
http://www.newport.gov.uk/disclaimer.
Mae'r e-bost hwn yn cynnwys gwybodaeth y bwriedir ar gyfer y derbynnydd yn
unig a gall fod yn gyfrinachol, yn destun ragorfraint gyfreithiol neu
broffesiynol, neu fel arall wedi’i diogelu rhag cael ei rhyddhau. Os nad
chi yw derbynnydd bwriadedig y neges hon, a fyddech cystal â rhoi gwybod
i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a pheidio â datgelu, dosbarthu neu gopïo’r e-bost i
unrhyw barti arall. Mae’r e-bost hon ac unrhyw ffeiliau atodedig yn eiddo
i Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd.
Pan fyddwch yn anfon e-bost at Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd, rydych yn cydsynio
i’r Cyngor fonitro a darllen unrhyw e-byst o’r fath at ddibenion
cydymffurfio â diogelwch ac â deddfwriaeth. I weld yr ymwadiad llawn ewch
i http://www.newport.gov.uk/ymwadiad
References
Visible links
1. http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/off...
Dear Adam Watkins,
I have undertaken an internal review of your original request, please see
attached document.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have a
right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
The Information Commissioners Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire
SK9 5AF.
Regards
Information Management
Mae’r Cyngor yn croesawu gohebiaeth yn Gymraeg, Saesneg neu yn y ddwy
iaith. Byddwn yn cyfathrebu â chi yn ôl eich dewis. Ni fydd gohebu yn
Gymraeg yn arwain at oedi.
The Council welcomes correspondence in English or Welsh or both, and will
respond to you according to your preference. Corresponding in Welsh will
not lead to delay.
Disclaimer/Ymwadiad
This email contains information intended for the addressee only and may be
confidential, the subject of legal or professional privilege, or be
otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient
of this message, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose,
distribute or copy the email to any other party. This email and any
attached file are the property of Newport City Council.
When you email Newport City Council, you consent to the Council monitoring
and reading any such emails for the purposes of security and legislative
compliance. For the full disclaimer please access
http://www.newport.gov.uk/disclaimer.
Mae'r e-bost hwn yn cynnwys gwybodaeth y bwriedir ar gyfer y derbynnydd yn
unig a gall fod yn gyfrinachol, yn destun ragorfraint gyfreithiol neu
broffesiynol, neu fel arall wedi’i diogelu rhag cael ei rhyddhau. Os nad
chi yw derbynnydd bwriadedig y neges hon, a fyddech cystal â rhoi gwybod
i'r anfonwr ar unwaith a pheidio â datgelu, dosbarthu neu gopïo’r e-bost i
unrhyw barti arall. Mae’r e-bost hon ac unrhyw ffeiliau atodedig yn eiddo
i Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd.
Pan fyddwch yn anfon e-bost at Gyngor Dinas Casnewydd, rydych yn cydsynio
i’r Cyngor fonitro a darllen unrhyw e-byst o’r fath at ddibenion
cydymffurfio â diogelwch ac â deddfwriaeth. I weld yr ymwadiad llawn ewch
i http://www.newport.gov.uk/ymwadiad
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