FOI Request - Review of Business Rates New Liabilities

Request 101002857548

Re: FOI 101002806180 'Business Rates New Liabilities'

I wish to appeal against your decision to withhold certain information in your published business rates data.

My understanding from other Scottish councils is that the Scottish government has asked all councils to be more open with their published data. This must include the release of the name of the ratepayer where this does not contravene the data protections laws, so limited companies are not protected from such laws. It is, therefore, inappropriate for you to withhold data relating to limited companies and, as such, should be included in the data. You cannot use the excuse that your system is unable to identify individuals from Ltd Co's because a very simple excel formula can be used to identify these. Furthermore, you have not released any start dates in your main published list yet you do so in the reliefs list. Therefore, you system is obviously capable of including this information in the main list also.

Finally, there is no reason whatsoever not to produce this list in excel format. You always publish data in pdf format which, as you well know, is not formattable in any way and even when the pdf is converted to excel, the data becomes corrupt and not manageable. I feel, therefore, that this is not a satisfactory way of publishing such a list.

I would like the above points addressed and if a satisfactory answer is not produced I will have no alternative but to go to the commissioners office for review. As every other council produces the data in the way I have mentioned, I cannot see any other outcome to that review than you having to release all of the information in the way that I have suggested so why waste everybody's time and effort and produce this now and avoid unnecessary stress and work.

Response 03-09-2021

Following your request for a review of our response to the request you submitted, FOI 101002806180 'Business Rates New Liabilities', a review meeting was held remotely on 20th August 2021. In attendance were the Acting Records and Heritage Manager, Senior Solicitor, Taxation Manager and Information Co-ordinator.

The meeting discussed that your request dated 27th April 2021 asked for a copy of new liabilities reports, with the inclusion of the start date for each account. It was agreed that our response fulfilled this request and so the Council's decision is upheld.

It was further noted that although your request for review was in reply to the above noted FOI, you have also expressed dissatisfaction with separately published information.As this wider dissatisfaction does not relate to a specific request, it is therefore not subject to a review in accordance with section 20 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland Act 2002.  In order to be helpful, however, it was agreed that all further points raised in the review request would be addressed as appropriate below.

Ratepayer name:
As explained on the Non Domestic Rates Reports web page (see above link), the system used by the Council does not separate individual and business names. As the Data Protection Act 2018 prevents the Council from disclosing personal information, to manually identify person names would require significant resources to be directed away from the provision of essential services. Each of currently 5189 accounts would need to be individually examined and we estimate this would take approximately 259 hours at a cost approximately £3,900. Individuals may make a specific request for this data under FOISA, however in order to be helpful, the web page notes that such a request would be refused under section 12 of FOISA as the task cannot be completed without exceeding the cost up to which the Council must comply with such a request.

Start dates:
The web page states that “Following changes in the software that is used, the date that liabilities began is not recorded in a manner that enables us to provide an accurate response for all non domestic properties and will therefore only be provided for newly created accounts. The current financial year start date is listed for all older accounts.” To clarify, the start date cannot be easily accessed by the reporting suite which is used to compile the ‘all properties’ reports, hence its non-inclusion in this report. As the Council retains new liabilities reports in PDF format at the department’s discretion; when an FOI request for these is received we can often provide copies (as we have done in response to the above noted FOI), but only where they are held. These reports are extracted from a database which is regularly being updated so it is not possible to recreate these reports in an Excel format at a later date.

Excel:
Following Scottish Government advice the Council recently begun publishing all reports on the Non Domestic Rates Report web page. Please note that as the system the Council uses to produce this information can only provide current snapshot of a constantly updating database, it is not possible to retroactively provide any previously requested information in an excel format.

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