Cardiff Council

The complainant requested various items of information from Cardiff Council in respect of Council Tax and the inspection of properties where a Class C exemption has been applied for. The Council informed the complainant that it did not hold relevant information falling within the scope of his request by virtue of section 1(1) of the FOIA and the Commissioner issued a decision notice (case reference FS50472358) accepting that on the balance of probabilities, that no information was held. The complainant appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) which disagreed, and ruled on 24 January 2014 [EA/2013/0183] that the Council must re-consider the request for information and either communicate the information requested to him or to serve a notice under section 17 of the FOIA. The Council reconsidered the request and subsequently relied on section 12 of the FOIA to refuse it. The Commissioner’s decision is that Cardiff Council was correct to rely on section 12 of the FOIA. The Commissioner does not require the Council to take any steps. Information Tribunal appeal EA/2014/0318 dismissed.