Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council

The complainant requested information relating to an incident at a hotel where a young child was injured in 2015. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (“the council”) refused part of the request under section 42(1) of FOIA (legal professional privilege). It also said that other information was not held by it. The Commissioner’s decision is that the council was correct to apply section 42 to withhold the information subject to legal professional privilege (“LPP”). However, he has decided that the council did hold further information at the time of the request, but that it deleted this. The Commissioner requires the council to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation: To determine whether the information which has been deleted can be recovered from the council’s back-up systems, and, if so, to recover it, and to consider it for disclosure to the complainant under their rights under section 1 of FOIA.