London Borough of Redbridge

The complainant submitted five requests to the London Borough of Redbridge (the Council) seeking information about rental properties owned by the former leader of the Council, the Council’s regulation of such properties and some information about the regulation of rental properties more generally. The Council initially responded to the requests disclosing a limited amount of information for some requests, and relying on sections 40 (personal data) and 30 (investigations) of FOIA to refuse the remainder. During the course of the Commissioner’s investigation the Council sought to refuse all of these requests on the basis of section 14(1) (vexatious) of FOIA. The Commissioner’s decision is that the requests are not vexatious and therefore the Council cannot rely on section 14(1) of FOIA to refuse these requests.