London Borough of Hillingdon

The complainant has requested from London Borough of Hillingdon (the
Council) information relating to quotes provided for tarmacking works
and copies of letters sent to local residents.
The Council treated the request as a Subject Access Request (SAR). It
then provided a response as part of the internal review which provided
some information.
The Commissioner’s decision is that the public authority has failed to
provide a substantive response to the request for information under
FOIA.
A public authority will breach section 10 of FOIA if it fails to respond to a
request within 20 working days, which the Council failed to do in this
case.
The Commissioner requires the Council to take the following steps to
ensure compliance with the legislation.
The public authority must provide a substantive response to the request
in accordance with its obligations under FOIA. In this response the
Council should disclose any information falling within the scope of the
request it does not consider to be exempt and issue a section 17 refusal
notice in respect of any material it considers to be exempt, clearly
indicating which part of the requested information exemption(s) are
being applied to.
The public authority must take this step within 30 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 FOIA and may be dealt with as a contempt of
court.