Your Ref:
Our Ref: FOI/449687 /
Mr Gavin Chait
Email: / 9 May2016
Dear Mr Chait
Freedom of Information Request 449687
I am writing in respect of your request for a review of the City Council’s response to your request for information, dated the 13 April, which was handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This matter has been assigned to me to investigate and review. The result of my review is contained within this letter.
The information you originally requested was as follows
- A complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data for your local authority, and including the following fields:
Billing Authority Code
Firm's Trading Name (i.e. property occupant)
Full Property Address (Number, Street, Postal Code, Town)
Occupied / Vacant
Date of Occupation / Vacancy
Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)
We provided a spreadsheet containing pertinent information and the following response –
The spreadsheet attached was produced on the 8 March 2016 and includes:
- Property reference number
- Business name
- Property address
- Account start date
However, some data included is not exactly as requested and we are unable to provide some of the information requested. To clarify;
Trading name of ratepayer
We have included the ratepayer name as extracted from our database. For us to redact this and only provide trading names would require a manual check of all 18228 lines of data which would result in the following
One officer 1 minutes per line of data = 1 x 18,228 = 18,288 minutes ÷ 60 = 303.8 hours.
Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places a duty on Local Authorities to provide data as requested. However, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not oblige a Local Authority to comply with a request for information if the Authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit is considered 18 hours and, on the basis of our estimations, we are not obliged under the Act to provide this information as the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit.When estimating the cost of compliance, we can only take into account the cost of the following activities:
- determining whether we hold the information;
- finding the requested information, or records containing the information;
- retrieving the information or records; and
- extracting the requested information from records.
The processes associated with meeting the terms of your request would, in the opinion of the City Council, breach the limit of 18 hours and, as such, we are refusing your request
Please note that we have also redacted the ratepayer names so that no individuals are named as the release of the names of the relevant property ratepayer(s) would also represent a breach of Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Any information which would identify another person is considered exempt from disclosure by virtue of Sections 40(2)(b) and 40(3)(a)(i) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as the information you have requested is considered third party information and only accessible to the data subject.
Occupied or Vacant
The City Council can confirm that the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure under Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This piece of legislation creates an exemption from the right to know if releasing the information would, or would be likely, to prejudice either the prevention or detection of crime
The City Council feels that, in this instance, the release of the location of empty properties, regardless of whether they are commercial or residential, would represent a breach of Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
As this exemption is primarily relevant to crime we have deemed it necessary to contact Merseyside Police in order to confirm if they are of the same opinion as the City Council in terms of the disclosure of the information you have requested. As such we asked Merseyside Police if they felt the release of the address of every empty commercial property in Liverpool could potentially lead to crimes being committed against those properties. They confirmed that they felt the release of the information would potentially increase crime and listed a number of incidents would could potentially occur including vandalism, burglary and the unlawful occupation of such properties.
It is in accordance with this that the City Council feels the application of Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is appropriate
However, as Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is a conditional exemption the City Council is obliged to conduct a public interest test in order to ascertain if the public interest in disclosure outweighs that of release. It is in accordance with this that the following factors have been considered in relation to the release of the information you require
- The identification of empty properties could bring their non-use to light and promote their re-use
- This is also true of properties which are empty and have fallen into a state of disrepair. Their formal identification could bring such a situation to light and prompt owners to take action
We have considered the following factors in relation to the withholding of the information you require:
- The prevention of potential criminal damage which might occur if addresses of empty properties were in the public domain
- Withholding the addresses of empty properties enables individuals to better protect their properties
- The opinion of Merseyside Police citing potential crime as a result of disclosure
The City Council acknowledges factors on either side of the public interest test and can see potentially positive outcomes of the release of the information in terms of disused and derelict properties being brought back into use. However, the City Council has a duty to ensure it acts in the best interests of the property owners and we cannot be sure that crimes will not be committed as a direct result of this information being released. It is with this, and the opinion of Merseyside Police, in mind that we uphold the application of Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and withhold the information you have requested.
Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)
We are unable to extract this information from our database and, as such, are unable to provide it
- For purposes of clarity, I will be conducting our internal review based onyour email to the City Council dated the15 April, in which you stated –
On 14 March 2016, I sent an FOI request for a complete and up-to-date list of all business (non-residential) property rates data, and including the following fields:
- Billing Authority Code
- Firm's Trading Name (i.e. property occupant)
- Full Property Address (Number, Street, Postal Code, Town)
- Occupied / Vacant
- Date of Occupation / Vacancy
- Actual annual rates charged (in Pounds)
My request has been refused in terms of Section 31(1)(a). According to the Information Commissioners Office, "Section 31 is a prejudice based exemption and is subject to the public interest test. This means that not only does the information have to prejudice one of the purposes listed, but, before the information can be withheld, the public interest in preventing that prejudice must outweigh the public interest in disclosure."
Section 31(1)(a) deals specifically with "the prevention or detection of crime".
A property being empty may well lead to it being more likely to suffer potential criminal activity, but it does not automatically follow that publishing a list of empty properties in any way changes that potential.
Empty premises will be known to residents of the community in which they are based, or they are advertised as part of a lettings offer. In other words, these are properties of which many people will be clearly aware are empty whether the local authority data are publicly available or not.
In addition, I have run - in parallel with this request - a series of FOI requests to a sample of local authorities and to all police services across England and Wales requesting total number of incidents of criminal activity in empty commercial properties. Such data would permit easy comparison between areas that regularly disclose and those which choose not to in order to assess whether there is a greater risk as a result of disclosure.
To date, no local authorities or police services have produced such data and it appears that no such data are collected. The only data (very sparsely collected) by local authorities about incidents of crime in council-owned commercial premises indicates that no such crime is recorded, even in local authorities where details of empty properties are regularly published.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have requested such data from Merseyside Police ( but have yet to receive a formal response from them. If they are typical of other forces, they do not collect such data and so any opinion they may offer is not based on any quantitative analysis.
It is very difficult to substantiate a Section 31 refusal if you have no data to validate your concern. Of the 350 local authorities in England and Wales, more than 58% of these either already make empty property data available, or have done so in response to FOI requests from ourselves.
In other words, there is no substantive basis for concern that publishing a list of empty properties will lead to prejudice under Section 31.
In terms of Public Interest, the purpose of our use of the data requested is in informing entrepreneurs and business seekers about opportunities in empty premises when they are advertised for new tenants. We combine local authority premises occupation data with other data (from the Valuations Office and ONS) to develop forward guidance on business potential in each empty business property. Further details on our activities are available at but our activity is supported by the Open Data Institute and we have received funding from the EU Open Data Incubator to develop this service.
Our combined data are made available via online commercial property leasing intermediaries as a free service to business seekers. These leasing intermediaries combine our data with properties being offered for rent.
We are mindful, though, that not all authorities wish to release direct information on empty premises. In that case, could we suggest that you provide only a list of occupied properties which we would then reconcile against the master list of properties from the Valuations Office Agency (VOA). VOA data are available via their website, and the complete database by subscription. Empty premises will be known to residents of the community in which they are based. That means that anyone not resident in your community and wanting to find the list of empty properties would have to undertake the costs and technicalities of a similar data reconciliation.
I would ask that you consider that the public interest in economic development and improving opportunities for independent businesses and entrepreneurs far outweighs any concern that the release of data which can identify empty business properties may cause crime.
Unemployment and economic deprivation are often key to reducing the potential for crime. Our intention is to support local economic development initiatives through the use of these data.
I ask that you reconsider your decision and make this data available to us under terms which permit our use thereof.
- After liaising with the relevant department after having asked them to review their original response I am now in a position to provide the following –
In previous years Liverpool City Council routinely released the addresses of empty properties within the City. However, after receiving an unexpectedly large number of this type of request the City Council felt it prudent look again at our standard response in order to ensure it was appropriate
As a result we liaised with Merseyside Police who, as confirmed in our response, felt that the disclosure of the locations of empty properties could potentially contribute to increased levels of both criminal and anti-social behaviour at these locations.
The City Council agrees that there are real benefits in highlighting empty properties and these were outlined by way of our public interest test in regards to the application of Section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
However, in line with the opinion of Merseyside Police, and the impact upon residents who, as a result of disclosure, may have their neighbourhoods affected by criminal and/or anti-social behaviour, and the property owners who, as a result of disclosure, may have to foot the repair bill for any criminal damage/break in etc., we feel we cannot release the information you have requested and, accordingly, uphold the response we originally provided.
This concludes my review. As I have now reviewed your original response, you have exhausted the City Council’s appeals process for the purposes of this request.
Accordingly, should you remain dissatisfied, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office, via the following:
Website is and the postal address and telephone numbers are:-
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Fax number 01625 524 510
Telephone 01625 545745
Email – (they advise that their email is not secure)
ÿÿYours sincerely
Michael Jones
Deputy Head of Democratic Services
Information Team Municipal Buildings Dale Street Liverpool L2 2DH
Telephone 0151 2330418Email