JANUARY BUSINESS RATES CREDITS
Case reference FOI2024/00045
Published 5 April 2024
Request
Please can you email me a list of JANUARY or Q4 (most current) business rates credits you currently hold for businesses including: " The company name for whom the credit exists " The start date of the business rates account " If the account is still live or the date it ended " The full property address of the property with the credit on " The date / year of when the credit was created " The full amount of credit you hold for the business " The reason for the credit e.g., retail relief, overpayment If you publish credits online, but the information has not been updated on time, please advise when this information will be updated.
Response
In response to your request, we can confirm that Oxford City Council holds this information but that we consider that the exemption under section 31(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to it.The exemption in Section 31(1) is designed to cover all aspects of the prevention and detection of crime. This information is exempt from disclosure as it is likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime, the apprehension or prosecution of offenders or the administration of justice.
Section 31 is a qualified exemption which means we must undertake a public interest test which is set out below in addition to explanations behind our engagement of this exemption. We acknowledge the public interest in openness and transparency. However, there has been a rise in fraudulent attempts to claim credits by third parties, thus this information is no longer published as this can be used to try to claim refunds fraudulently.Thus, while we strive to be transparent, we must also consider the importance of our duty to provide the public with quality and value for money services. As a result of this duty, and the risk of potential prejudice of mishandling the data published online, we believe the interest in withholding this information outweighs that for disclosure.
Documents
This is Oxford City Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.