City of Wolverhampton Council

The complainant requested information relating to the adoption of a specific road. City of Wolverhampton Council (the “council”) disclosed some information, confirmed other information wasn’t held and withheld other information under the exceptions in regulation 12(4)(e) (internal communications) and regulation 12(5)(b) (course of justice). The Commissioner’s decision is that the council correctly withheld legal advice under regulation 12(5)(b) but that it wasn’t entitled to rely on regulation 12(4)(e) to withhold internal communications and that regulation 5(3) applies to this information. The Commissioner also finds that the council has not demonstrated, on the balance of probabilities, that it does not hold further information falling within the scope of the complainant's request, breaching regulation 5(1). The Commissioner requires the council to disclose the information withheld under regulation 12(4)(e), excepting information that is the complainant’s own personal information subject to regulation 5(3) and third party personal information subject to regulation 13; carry out further searches for information identified in paragraph 52 of this notice and, issue a fresh response to the complainant.