Buckinghamshire Council

The complainant requested information from Aylesbury District Council (“the Council”), which now forms part of the new Buckinghamshire Council, about the date that a change to the council tax banding for a specific property was approved. The Council initially considered that the request was not a valid request for the purposes of the FOIA. Following the Commissioner’s intervention, the Council revised its position and issued a response under the FOIA; its position was that the information was not held. The Commissioner’s decision is that, on the balance of probabilities, the Council does not hold the requested information. However, by failing to inform the complainant that it did not hold the information within the statutory time for compliance, it breached section 10(1) of the FOIA. The Commissioner does not require the Council to take any steps.