Birmingham City Council

The complainant requested information about a specific site. Birmingham City Council (the “Council”) initially responded to the request under the FOIA but subsequently confirmed under the EIR that the information was not held. The complainant disputes this. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council should have considered the request under the EIR rather than FOIA and that it failed to issue a refusal notice under the EIR in time and breached regulation 14(2). However, he is satisfied that, on the balance of probabilities, the Council holds no recorded information relevant to the complainant’s request and that it correctly applied regulation 12(4)(a). The Commissioner does not require the Council to take any steps.