London Borough of Hillingdon

The complainant has requested, from the London Borough of Hillingdon (the council), information about an agreement between the council and developers concerning the provision of a library. The council confirmed holding two documents – a “Principal Agreement” (PA) and a “Library Agreement” (LA) – but has refused to disclose them, on the basis of regulations 12(4)(e), 12(5)(e) and 12(5)(f) of the EIR (respectively, the exceptions for internal communications, the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information and the interests of the person who provided the information). The Commissioner’s decision is that those exceptions aren’t engaged. He also finds that the council breached regulations 14(2) and 14(3) (refusal to disclose information), and regulation 11(4) (representations and reconsideration), because (respectively) it provided its refusal later than 20 working days after receiving the request; it failed to specify an exception on which it later came to rely; and it provided the outcome of its internal review later than 40 working days after receiving the internal review request. The Commissioner therefore requires the council to disclose the withheld information, to ensure compliance with the legislation. The council 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 the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.