Ceredigion County Council

The complainant requested information about a particular planning application. Ceredigion County Council provided some information and stated other requests were not requests for recorded information but responded as business as usual questions and also stated that all information relating to the planning application was on the planning portal. At the time of its internal review the Council confirmed that additional documentation had been uploaded onto the planning portal and stated that no further information was held. The complainant alleged that further information was held which the Council had not provided nor was available on the planning portal. During the Commissioner’s investigation, the Council identified further recorded information falling within the scope of the request and stated that it considered this additional information to be exempt under regulations 12(4)(e) (internal communications) and regulation 12(5)(b) (course of justice). The Commissioner’s decision is other than the information disclosed and the information withheld the Council does not hold any further information relevant to the request. The Commissioner also finds that the Council has correctly applied regulation 12(4)(e) and regulation 12(5)(b) to withhold some of the requested information and that the public interest favours maintaining the exceptions. Finally, the Commissioner has identified that the Council breached regulations 5(2), 11(4) and 14(2) for failing to handle the request within the statutory timescales. The Commissioner does not require the public authority to take any steps.