Crawley Borough Council

The complainant submitted a four-part request to Crawley Borough Council (the council) for information held about Stiles Harold Williams (SHW), a company that manages the council’s commercial property portfolio. This complaint primarily concerns the council’s handling of part 3 of the request, which the council refused under section 43(2) (commercial interests) of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the council has failed to comply with section 16(1) (advice and assistance) of FOIA. This is because part 3 of the request did not have a single objective reading and the council failed to seek clarification of this part of the request from the complainant under section 1(3) of FOIA. As the council failed to respond to parts 1,2 and 4 of the request, and failed to issue a refusal notice in response to part 3, within 20 working days, the Commissioner has found a breach of section 1, 10 and 17 of FOIA. The Commissioner requires the council to seek clarification of the information that the complainant requires in response to part 3 of the request, and then issue a fresh response that complies with FOIA.