London Borough of Tower Hamlets

The complainant asked Tower Hamlets Homes (the “public authority”) to provide information relating to its management accounts. The public authority provided some information but maintained that further information was either not held or that it would exceed the appropriate limit to deal with the request. During the investigation the public authority sought to aggregate this request with two other requests made by the complainant thereby exempting all three by virtue of section 12 (cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit). It also sought to introduce section 44 (prohibitions of disclosure) of the Act. The Commissioner’s decision is that the public authority was incorrect to claim that some information was not held. He also finds that it was not able to aggregate the requests and that it could not apply section 12. He further finds that that the public authority was not able to rely on section 44. The public authority’s handling of the request also resulted in breaches of certain procedural requirements of the Act as identified in this Notice.