London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

The complainants have made two requests for information from The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham about electricity supplied by the Landlord Controlled system. LBBD has refused to comply with the requests relying on section 14(1) – vexatious requests. The Commissioner’s decision is that LBBD is not entitled to rely on section 14(1) to refuse the request and that having failed to respond to the request submitted on 15 February 2018 within 20 working days, LBBD has breached section 10 of the FOIA. She requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation. Issue a fresh response to both requests submitted by the complainant which do not rely on section 14.The public authority must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.