London Borough of Enfield

The complainant submitted a four part request to the London Borough of Enfield (the Council) seeking information about a subsidence claim made by a neighbouring property as a result of damage caused by a tree. The Council initially refused to confirm or deny whether it held any information on the basis of section 40(5) (personal data) of FOIA. It subsequently provided information falling within the scope of two parts of the request, withheld information falling within the scope of the third part of the request on the basis of regulation 12(5)(f) (interests of the person who provided the information) of the EIR, and continued to refuse to confirm or deny whether it held any information sought by the fourth part of the request. The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council is entitled to rely on regulation 13(5A)(a) of the EIR to refuse to confirm or deny whether it holds the information falling within the scope of part d) of the request and whilst the information sought by part c) of the request is not exempt from disclosure on the basis of regulation 12(5)(f) it is exempt under regulation 13(1) of the EIR. The Council also breached regulation 5(2) of the EIR by failing to disclose some of the requested information within 20 working days and breached regulation 11(2) by failing to complete an internal review.