NNDR Accounts in Credit

The request was successful.

Dear Hackney Borough Council,
I am seeking to obtain a report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c.36). Could you please reply to me with the following report attached:

Unclaimed business rate credit balances.

I am aware that Billing Authorities hold on account sums of money that are due to be returned to ratepayers and for a variety of reasons have not been repaid.

I, therefore, request a breakdown of credit balances accrued since your earliest records, for the amounts owing to all incorporated companies within your authority's billing area, including the following information:

A. The legal name of each business in respect of which non-domestic rate credit balances remain payable
B. The value of overpayment in each case which remains unclaimed
C. The years(s) in which overpayment was made
D. The hereditament address
E. The legal name of each business in respect of which non-domestic rate credit balances have been written back on to the NDR account
F. The value of write back in each case which remains unclaimed
G. The years(s) in which the write back was made (if available)
H. The hereditament address that the write back relates to

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours faithfully,

C Pleasants

hackney@infreemation.co.uk,

Dear C Pleasants

We acknowledge receipt of your email to Hackney:

Freedom of Information request - NNDR Accounts in Credit

If you have submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) or the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), we will aim to
respond within the statutory timescale of 20 working days. If you have
submitted a Subject Access Request your request will be considered and you
will receive our response within the statutory timescale of one calendar
month.

The reference number for your email is FOI-3862.

Should you have any further inquiries concerning this matter, please reply
to this email leaving the subject line unchanged.

Yours sincerely,
Hackney Council

hackney@infreemation.co.uk,

Dear C Pleasant

 

Re: Freedom of Information Request.

 

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000, received 5 August 2019. Your request has been
considered and our response is in bold below.

 

Your request states the following:

I am seeking to obtain a report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(c.36). Could you please reply to me with the following report attached:

Unclaimed business rate credit balances.

I am aware that Billing Authorities hold on account sums of money that are
due to be returned to ratepayers and for a variety of reasons have not
been repaid.

I, therefore, request a breakdown of credit balances accrued since your
earliest records, for the amounts owing to all incorporated companies
within your authority''s billing area, including the following
information:

A. The legal name of each business in respect of which non-domestic rate
credit balances remain payable

B. The value of overpayment in each case which remains unclaimed

C. The years(s) in which overpayment was made

D. The hereditament address

E. The legal name of each business in respect of which non-domestic rate
credit balances have been written back on to the NDR account

F. The value of write back in each case which remains unclaimed

G. The years(s) in which the write back was made (if available)

H. The hereditament address that the write back relates to

 

The Council’s Response

The Council has now considered your request and has deemed that the
required information is exempt under Sections 41 and 31 of the Freedom of
Information Act. It is important to emphasise that in this context, any
information disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act is a disclosure
into the public domain over which the Council can exercise no control. It
is not merely disclosure to the requester. It is this perspective which
must be taken into account, and when discussing the risks of harm, the
Council should not be taken to be meaning that it believes the requester
personally will, or may, take the relevant action.

 

Section 41 – Information provided in confidence

Section 41 of the Freedom of Information Act states:

(1). Information is exempt information if-

(a) it was obtained by the public authority from any other person
(including another public authority), and

(b) the disclosure of the information to the public (otherwise than under
this Act) by the public authority holding it would constitute a breach of
confidence actionable by that or any other person.

The Council has taken into account the following documents and decisions
relevant to this exemption:

 1. Information Commissioners Freedom of Information Act – Awareness
Guidance 2 – “Information provided in confidence”
2. Information Commissioners “Freedom of Information Act – the duty of
confidence and the public interest”

The above documents can be found on the Information Commissioner’s
website at [1]www.ico.gov.uk .

The Council has applied section 41(1) to the part of your request
concerning the the legal name of each business in respect of which
non-domestic rate credit balances remain payable, the value of overpayment
in each case which remains unclaimed, the years(s) in which the
overpayment was made, the legal name of each business in respect of which
non-domestic rate credit balances remain payable, the value of overpayment
in each case which remains unclaimed and the years(s) in which overpayment
was made. This information was obtained by the Council from both
individuals and companies and the Council considers that disclosure of
information not already in the public domain would constitute an
actionable breach of confidence. 

The Council also considers that the information has the necessary quality
of confidence.  It is recognised in English law that an important duty of
confidentiality is owed to taxpayers and this is known as “taxpayer’s
confidentiality”. It is a long-established principle of common law,
protecting taxpayers’ affairs against disclosure to the public, and has
been recognised to be of the utmost importance when dealing with the
administration of taxes and rates. 

The Council is satisfied that the requested information at issue here is
not trivial, nor is it available by any other means. 

The duty of confidence is not absolute, and the courts recognise that
confidential information may be disclosed where there is an overriding
public interest in disclosure, or if the person to whom the duty of
confidence is owed consents to the disclosure.

In the context of this request consent has not been provided. As to
whether there is an overriding public interest, the Information
Commissioner states in his guidance listed at 1 above that:

“the courts have taken the view that the grounds for breaching
confidentiality must be valid and very strong.  A duty of confidentiality
should not be overridden lightly”

The Information Commissioner has produced further guidance upon the duty
of confidence and the public interest test, listed at 2 above.  The
Council has had particular regard to the content of this guidance in
dealing with your request.

It is stated at page 2 of the guidance that “the public interest test
within the duty of confidence assumes that information should be withheld
unless the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in
maintaining the duty of confidence”

Ratepayers provide information (including their names and addresses) to
the Council in confidence and receive rates calculations in confidence.
They have a legal expectation that these confidences will be maintained. 
Disclosure of rate or tax related information into the public domain may
discourage the provision of full information to the Council as it would
remove that expectation that such confidences would be respected. 

Furthermore there is a public interest in maintaining trust and preserving
a free flow of information to the Council where this is necessary for the
Council to perform its statutory functions relating to the administration
of Business Rates and Council Tax.  Such functions are undertaken for the
benefit of the public.

Although there may be a public interest in scrutinising how the Council
administers its business rates, the Council is unable to identify any more
specific or weighty interests arising out of the particular request made.

It is also the case that any refund or credit information request would
not be disclosed to a third party without an “Authority to Act” letter
from the company or organisation on whose account the credit has occurred.

In addition to such a letter of authorisation, it would be expected that
the applicant would be in a position to provide details of the account
that they are seeking to enquire about. This would take the form of an
account number or a copy of a Business Rates document. This is no
different to the way the Council would usually handle its day to day
business if such a request was made in correspondence or over the
telephone.

Where the letter of authority has not given specific authority for details
of the company or organisation’s financial transactions with the Council
(including credits and debits) to be provided, it is not considered to be
in the public interest to disclose such information to third parties. 

Given all of the above, the request for disclosure is refused under
section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.

 

Section 31(1)(a) – Prevention of Crime

Any list of credits supplied would be likely to identify properties that
are either already empty or which are likely to become empty in the
future. The Council considers that the addresses of empty properties are
exempt from disclosure on the basis of section 31(1)(a) (prejudice to the
prevention or detection of crime).

 

Given this, then all credit information that the Council holds is also
deemed to be exempt information on the basis of section 31(1)(a). In
regards to potentially identifying empty properties then the London
Borough of Hackney has previously experienced instances of squatting in
the past and recognises that this can lead to criminal activities and
damage to those properties. Consequently as the Council has specific
evidence that empty properties have been targeted for crime, for instance
arson, and that this had potentially led to endangerment, the Council
considers that the exemption is plainly engaged. Disclosure would likely
enable properties to be identified too easily and increases the risk of
such properties being targeted for criminal activity, including arson,
metal theft, waste dumping/fly tipping abstraction of utilities, etc.

 

In addition to the above, disclosure of the requested information would
potentially, if combined with information already in the public domain, be
likely to create an opportunity for fraudulent refund claims to be made
that does not already exist. Consequently, by providing the information
the Council might facilitate or encourage the making of such fraudulent
claims, something that it cannot wittingly become any party to.

 

As stated above, disclosure could also enable anti-social behaviour such
as squatting in empty properties, associated neighbourhood complaints, and
endangerment to life and health by urban exploring and other trespass.
These matters may not all be crimes in themselves, but they do form part
of the general public interest balance.

 

Providing a list that could identify empty properties would provide those
intent on committing crimes associated with such properties with an easy
way to identify them.  The resultant prejudice, which the Council believes
would occur, is one that can be categorised as one that would be real and
of substance.

 

Public interest in maintaining the exemption

* It is not in the public interest to disclose information that aids
individuals to commit crimes.
* It is not in the public interest to disclose information that aids
fraud on the public purse.
* It is not in the public interest to disclose information that aids
individuals to carry out non-criminal but unlawful action, such as
trespass.

 

Public interest in disclosure of the information

* Disclosure could provide the public with a slightly greater insight
into the Council’s administration of the business rates system.

 

Balance of the public interest

There is no public interest argument in favour of specifically disclosing
credit balance information in relation to individual addresses and/or
individual rate-payers. To the extent that the public has an interest in
being given details of the balances that remain on business rates
accounts, this could be satisfied by the authority simply supplying
statistical information, such as aggregates or averages, in relation to
those balances, whether debit or credit.

 

Release of the specific account details of each credit balance cannot in
itself provide any more relevance in terms of public interest than just
the provision of totals, but could result in details of credits being
released to fraudsters, followed by refund claims being made by the actual
account holder. This could lead to situations where the Council might have
to pay the refund twice, something that would certainly not be in the
public interest.

 

It would be fair to observe that disclosure might provide some limited
insight into the administration of business rates by the Council. However,
in contrast, the public interest in preventing crime and other anti-social
behaviour is very strong indeed. The Council is firmly of the view that
such interests are outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that
criminals are not aided in using empty properties in the London Borough of
Hackney for crime.

 

The public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public
interest in disclosing the addresses of the empty properties and the
section 31(1)(a) exemption has therefore been applied. In support of this
decision, the Council refers to the Information Commissioner’s Office
decision FS50671834, relating to Mr David Hunter v London Borough of Tower
Hamlets, in which the Commissioner determined that the application of
Section 31(1)(a) was correctly applied when a request for credit balances
on business rates account was declined.

 

I would also draw your attention to the fact that Hackney’s view regarding
the release of information relating to empty properties was recently
endorsed by the Information Commissioner who has upheld Hackney Council’s
stance by rejecting a challenge that had been made against a previous
refusal to disclose this information.  

 

Appeals & Complaints Procedure

If you are dissatisfied with this response and wish to appeal, please
respond to this email to request an Internal Review.

If you are still not satisfied following the Internal Review, you have a
right to appeal to the Information Commissioner.

[2]https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ema...

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

0303 123 1113

 

Kind regards

Information Management
ICT Services
London Borough of Hackney 

 

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
2. https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ema...