Dear Niall Deas

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request, which was received by Vale of White Horse District Council on 11 November 2022.

Please accept this email as confirmation that your request has been received and is being considered by the relevant department and that a response will be sent to you within 20 working days, subject to the information not being exempt and subject to any need for clarification.

The deadline for this will be 12 December 2022

The reference number for this request is Vale 22/958

I trust that this email is sufficient to assure you that your request is being dealt with. However, should you have any queries in the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact the FOI team at [Vale of White Horse District Council request email]

Kind regards

Information Governance Team

Legal & Democratic Services
Vale of White Horse District Council
www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk

We've moved - our address is now:

Abbey House
Abbey Close
Abingdon
OX14 3JE
Please update your records.

To find out more about how the council holds, uses and stores your personal data, please click on the link below
Vale of White Horse District Council

show quoted sections

Dear Niall Deas,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information requests, which were received by
both South Oxfordshire District Council and Vale of White Horse District
Council, logged under FOI  22/999 South and 22/958 Vale. Please note that
the two councils operate as a shared service hence this joint response.

Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 2000 Act) you
are entitled to be informed in writing whether the council holds the
information specified in your request and, if that is the case, to have
that information communicated to you unless any of the statutory
exemptions apply. I have considered your request and can confirm we do
hold some of the information asked. However, I believe statutory
exemptions apply to your request. Please find below the information you
requested (where available):

Please provide your HMO in excel format including the UPRN (Unique
Property Reference Number) for each property. Record to include:

1. the address of the licensed HMO or house;

2. the number of rooms in the licensed HMO providing sleeping
accommodation;

3. the maximum number of persons or households permitted to occupy the
licensed HMO under the conditions of the licence;

4. the name and address of the licence holder;

5. the date of the licence

6. the date of the expiry of the licence

7. the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN).

Section 21 of the 2000 Act exempts disclosure of information that is
reasonably accessible by other means.  The current HMO licence register
can be obtained from [1]South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse HMO
register by clicking on the link named “HMO License Register”

Section 21(2)(b) of the 2000 Act states: ‘information is to be taken to be
reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the
public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment
to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for
inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or
on payment.’ Subsequently, the information you have requested is
technically exempt from disclosure under the FOI Act, due to our
obligations under section 232 of the Housing Act 2004.

The council believes that the names and addresses of HMO licence holders
constitutes third party personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018
and therefore is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of the Freedom
of Information Act. We do not believe that these individuals would
reasonably expect that their personal data would be disclosed under the
Freedom of Information Act to the world at large and to do so would
therefore breach the First Principle of the General Data Protection
Regulations. Therefore, we do not publish the full register online. The
requirement under the Housing Act is to provide a copy of the register on
request, there is no obligation to make it available electronically.
Furthermore, publishing in full on the internet (and release under the
2000 Act) can be considered unfair, hence a breach of Article 5 of GDPR
due to the ease of access by a large volume of people.

The councils do not record the UPRN within our HMO register. However,
these are already publicly searchable at [2]FindMyAddress.

Please treat this as the councils’ formal response under the 2000 Act.  If
you are not satisfied with the decision I have made in response to your
request, you can make a request for an internal review by emailing
[3][email address] and [4][Vale of White Horse District Council request email]  within 40 working
days from the date we issued our response. If you remain dissatisfied
after following that procedure, you have the right under Section 50 of the
2000 Act to complain to the Information Commissioner if you feel the
council has not dealt with your request properly. You can contact the
Commissioner at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
(telephone number: 0303 123 1113). You can also find further information
at [5]www.ico.org.uk.

Kind regards

Miss Lowri Miller         MCIEH  REnvH

Private Sector Housing Team Leader

Private Sector Housing

South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils

Abbey House
Abbey Close
Abingdon
OX14 3JE

[mobile number]

To read our privacy policy, please go to this link for [6]South
Oxfordshire or this link for [7]Vale of White Horse

References

Visible links
1. https://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale-of-...
2. https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search
3. mailto:[email address]
4. mailto:[Vale of White Horse District Council request email]
5. http://www.ico.org.uk/
6. http://www.southoxon.gov.uk/about-us/con...
7. http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/about-us/...