You asked
I would like to request the following dataset:
Dataset: Valuation Office Agency Data – Property Details Extract Supplier: Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Version: 02072016 delivery Geography: England and Wales Time period: One-off stock extract reflecting the period 1 April 1993 to 1 July 2016
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide the information you have requested as it is considered personal information. Under s.39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA), personal information held by us (including that which identifies a body corporate) must not be disclosed. Providing copies of the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Property Details data would be a breach of this legislation. Because the release of this information is prohibited by law, s.44(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 (prohibitions on disclosure) applies. Furthermore, because the dataset include personal data capable of identifying individuals, we also find that s.40(2) of FOIA is engaged as this data is protected by Data Protection Legislation.
Additionally, this data was supplied to us under agreement in October 2015 solely for the performance of our function to produce the House Prices Index. To disclose the requested dataset would go against this agreement and would result in an actionable breach of confidence. We therefore find that s.41 of FOIA is engaged. The use of s.41 is subject to a public interest test. We appreciate that arguments in favour of disclosure are further public understanding of statistics around the House Prices Index. In favour of withholding the information are maintaining the relationships with organisations that provide us with data in confidence. If we were to breach this confidence, we risk a situation whereby organisations are no longer comfortable providing us with data. This would in turn jeopardise our ability to fulfil our primary function of the production of statistics, and we would argue that this is not in the public interest.