Philip Meadowcroft v The Information Commissioner

Mr Meadowcroft made a request to the Council on 5 January 2025 for:

On 3 February 2025 the Council responded to the request and relied on sections 22, 41, 42 and 43 FOIA to withhold the information. On internal review the Council changed its position and informed the appellant on 2 April 2025 that it relied on section 14 FOIA (vexatious requests) to refuse the request. The Council relied on the burden of complying with the request which it estimated to be 460 hours, 40 minutes.

The Council searched for ‘@CarterJonas.co.uk’ in the relevant time period using Microsoft Purview, which returned 5528 emails. The Council estimated that it would take 10 seconds per email to determine if the emails fell within the scope of the request. The Council was unable to determine how many emails would be filtered out. The Council estimated that it would take 3 minutes per email to consider whether any exemptions applied and a further 2 minutes to makes any redactions.

In a decision notice dated 10 November 2025 the Commissioner decided that the Council was entitled to rely on section 14(1) FOIA to refuse to comply with the request.

The Commissioner accepted that the Council would have to review a large number of emails and attachments in order to determine if it was relevant to the request. He considered that 30 seconds was a more reasonable estimate of the time it would take to review each email for relevance. He considered that the estimate of three minutes per email was a reasonable average estimate. He based his overall estimate on the assumption that 50% of the emails would fall withing the scope of the request, i.e. 2764 emails which would give a total of 138.2 hours.

The Commissioner concluded that this figure, even if it included the initial process of considering if the emails were relevant, was well in excess of the appropriate time limit allowed for under section 12 (costs exceed the appropriate limit) of the FOIA and did not include considering whether the additional estimated two minutes per email for redaction of the withheld information was reasonable. He was satisfied that the request was for a substantial volume of material.

The Commissioner accepted, given the content and nature of the information requested, there were likely to be parts of it that engaged the exemptions raised by the Council (sections 43, 42, 49 and 36). He accepted that such information was likely to be dispersed throughout the information that was in scope.

In the light of the above he concluded that complying with the request would be burdensome.

In balancing the burden of compliance against the purpose and value of the request, the Commissioner noted that a large backlog had built up in relation to local audit, which the Government had addressed by setting a statutory backstop dates for the publication of audits, with the consequence that many local bodies will receive modified or disclaimed audit opinions due to circumstances largely outside their control and which do not signify issues in their financial accounts. The Commissioner took account of a policy paper published by the Government on 27 November 2024 entitled ‘Addressing the local audit backlog: modified or disclaimed audit opinions’.

The Commissioner noted that the Council informed the Commissioner that the disclaimed audits occurred during the period of Covid and were reported in the local news. He noted that the Council had confirmed that there were regular updates to the Audit committee in relation to these matters and it had advised the complainant to refer to those documents.

In essence, the grounds of appeal are that the Commissioner was wrong to conclude that the request was vexatious. In particular the appellant submitted:

The Commissioner stood by his findings in the decision notice.

In his reply Mr. Meadowcroft explains that his request arose because Council officers and the council’s professional property advisers (Carter Jonas) disagreed fundamentally in the valuation of council assets in a portfolio funded by two £100m tranches. He said that the failure to agree these valuations became a significant factor in the issue of Disclaimed Audits by Ernst & Young for three consecutive years 21/22, 22/23, and 23/24.

In relation to burden Mr. Meadowcroft submitted that the use of Microsoft Purview could significantly reduce the amount of time officials need to assemble and prepare the data.

Mr Meadowcroft said that he had only submitted two FOI requests: a request covering a wider time period and the present refined request. He submitted that the number of requests can hardly be considered to have gone beyond the ‘tipping point’. He said that the present request was raised in 2025 after helpful guidance and signposting from the Commissioner following the previous 2024 request, and this does not show an obsessive and long term pursuit of creating a burden on the Council. He said that it was a single clearly focussed request. He submitted that the oppressive burden could be reduced to ‘mere minutes’ by using Microsoft Purview.

Mr. Meadowcroft pointed out that he was not a frequent FOI requestor or a ‘social warrier’ in the habit of sending discourteous emails as Mr. Dransfield had been described. He said that he observed due process and appropriate good manners have prevailed. He has not suggested any wrongdoing or failing by the Council.

He said that the Commissioner has misled himself by taking the view that the Policy Paper has in effect relieved all councils in England from publicly releasing data from Disclaimed Audits of 2021/2022, 2022/23, and 2023/24 which the Minister sought to disregard. He said that the Policy Paper has not been formalised into a Statutory Instrument or an Act of Parliament and therefore does not have the force of law.

FOIA does not define what is meant by ‘vexatious’. It is apparent from the wording of section 14(1) that it is the request that must be vexatious, not the Appellant. The Upper Tribunal gave guidance in Information Commissioner v Devon County Council and Dransfield [2012] UKUT 440 (AAC), as upheld and clarified by the Court of Appeal in Dransfield v Information Commissioner and Devon County Council[2015] EWCA Civ 454. As noted by Arden LJ in the Court of Appeal, the hurdle of showing a request is vexatious is a high one: 

Nothing in the above paragraph is inconsistent with the Upper Tribunal’s decision which similarly emphasised (a) the need to ensure a holistic approach was taken and (b) that the value of the request was an important but not the only factor.

The lack of a reasonable foundation to a request is only the starting point to an analysis which must consider all the relevant circumstances. Public interest cannot act as a ‘trump card’. Rather, the public interest in the subject matter of a request is a consideration that itself needs to be balanced against the resource implications of the request, and any other relevant factors, in a holistic determination of whether a request is vexatious. (see CP v Information Commissioner [2016] UKUT 427 (AAC)).

The Upper Tribunal’s decision in Dransfield provides more detailed guidance that was not challenged in the Court of Appeal. The ultimate question is, “is the request vexatious in the sense of being a manifestly unjustified, inappropriate or improper use of FOIA?” [43]. In the context of reviewing the Commissioner’s Guidance, the Upper Tribunal highlighted “the importance of adopting a holistic and broad approach to the determination of whether a request is vexatious or not, emphasising the attributes of manifest unreasonableness, irresponsibility and, especially where there is a previous course of dealings, the lack of proportionality that typically characterise vexatious requests” [45]. Arden LJ in the Court of Appeal also emphasised that a “rounded approach” is required [69].

Overall, the purpose of section 14 is to “protect the resources (in the broadest sense of that word) of the public authority from being squandered on disproportionate use of FOIA” (Upper Tribunal at [10]).

In Craven v ICO & Department for Energy and Climate Change [2015] EWCA Civ 454the Court of Appeal accepted “there is no warrant for reading section 14 FOIA as subject to some express or implied qualification that a request cannot be vexatious in part because of, or solely because of, the costs of complying with the current request.”[85].

This has subsequently been confirmed in Cabinet Office v Information Commissioner and Ashton[2018] UKUT 208 (AAC), in which the Upper Tribunal stated, having considered the relevant case law:

The tribunal’s remit is governed by section 58 FOIA. This requires the tribunal to consider whether the decision made by the Commissioner is in accordance with the law or, where the Commissioner’s decision involved exercising discretion, whether he should have exercised it differently. The tribunal may receive evidence that was not before the Commissioner and may make different findings of fact from the Commissioner.

We had before us and took account of where relevant an open and a closed bundle. It is necessary to withhold the closed bundle to avoid defeating the purpose of the proceedings. We heard oral submissions from Mr. Meadowcroft and read a skeleton argument. We were also referred to a report from the audit committee.

In his skeleton argument Mr. Meadowcroft sets out the rationale for his request, as set out in ‘background to the appeal’ above. He was asked by the panel in the hearing whether there was anything in the bundle that supported his assertion that it was ‘widely known’ that there was a fundamental disagreement between the Council and Carter Jonas over the valuation of the Council’s large property portfolio (funded by two £100m tranches) and this was a significant factor in causing the disclaimed audits.

In response he said that there was nothing in the bundle, but he read a section out from the Wokingham Borough Council Audit Update January 2024, prepared by Ernst and Young. The appellant was permitted to rely on this extract on the basis that the tribunal would read the full update, which was available on the Council’s website. We located that document and took it into account.

The extract that the appellant read out was as follows:

The panel pointed out that the extract did not mention any ‘fundamental disagreement” between Carter Jonas and the Council. His reply was that he had been told this by the leader of the Council.

Mr Meadowcroft was asked, given that it was public knowledge that there had been a disagreement between Carter Jonas and the Council on valuations and that this had contributed, in part to the disclaimed audits, what was the value in disclosing the correspondence in which that disagreement took place.

His reply was that the value of the correspondence was in “seeing how we got to a position” where one party says an asset is worth one amount and one party says it is worth another amount. He said that there had been considerable spending by Councils on significant assets in times of low interest rates, which had decreased in value since Covid.

Mr. Meadowcroft submitted that in presenting its evidence to the Commissioner, the Council had been “exceptionally disingenuous by applying the concept of asset valuation (only as far as I can see due to the heavy redactions of complete pages by the Information Commissioner) to relatively minor issues (one of which dates from 2022 prior to the start date in my request) rather than to the major property investment asset valuations which are believed to be responsible, in part, for the disclaimed audit opinions.”

He said that he was only interested in ‘big ticket’ items. When asked if he had thought about asking only for correspondence related to valuation of assets above a certain value or had had any discussions about potentially narrowing the request down, he said that he had not. He was asked what he meant by ‘big ticket’ items and he said in the hearing that he was interested in assets above £10 million, although he revised this following the hearing to assets above £610,000.

When asked why he had not made a narrower request he said that he had been afraid that he would miss something and that he wanted to ‘go on a fishing expedition’.

He submitted that the public has a right to know what has happened to their council tax money. He reiterated that the policy paper relied on by the Commissioner had, in his view, no relevance to the request.

He was asked to explain how Microsoft Purview would be able to reduce the burden of the request. He was not able to do so, other than asserting that the search would be able to ‘go further’.

In Kennedy v Charity Commission [2014] 2 WLR 808, Lord Sumption, with whom Lord Neuberger and Lord Clarke agreed, said as follows, at para 153:

It is important to remind ourselves of those observations. FOIA creates a prima facieright to disclosure of information held by public authorities, save in so far as that right is qualified by the terms of FOIA or the information in question is exempt. Further, we remind ourselves that the qualifications and exemptions embody a careful balance between the public interest considerations militating for and against disclosure.

The purpose of section 14 is “to protect the resources (in the broadest sense of that word) of the authority from being squandered on disproportionate use of FOIA.” (UT, Dransfield, para 10). In order to achieve this purpose, as the Court of Appeal noted (CA, Dransfield, para 68),Parliament has chosen to use a strong word, and therefore the hurdle of satisfying it is high.

This is a wide ranging request. It asks for all correspondence in a 25 month period between the Council and Carter Jonas with regard to the valuation of Wokingham Borough Council assets. Although Mr. Meadowcroft’s interest was related to the disclaimed audits and therefore in ‘big ticket’ assets, his request plainly includes all correspondence relating to the valuation of all Council assets. The Council therefore cannot be criticised for including correspondence on the valuation of small assets, because they are within the scope of the request.

Although Mr. Meadowcroft said in oral submissions that there had been no communication with the Council about narrowing the request, the Council wrote to him on 5 March 2025, before relying on section 14 as follows:

There is no response from Mr. Meadowcroft included in the bundle and therefore the Council was obliged to provide all the information in the scope of the widely drawn request.

We have considered whether the public authority’s estimate of the burden of complying with the request is reasonable. Although Mr. Meadowcroft submits that the relevant emails could be identified within minutes using Microsoft Purview, he was unable to explain that assertion at the hearing.

However, the tribunal takes the view that it is highly unlikely that ‘@carterjonas.co.uk’ is the most focussed search that could be carried out using Microsoft Purview. For example, the tribunal considers that the Council could have searched for emails containing valuation specific keywords such as “valuation OR valued OR assets OR property” for example. The tribunal takes the view that this would have produced significantly fewer results. This would reduce significantly the time that would be needed for the initial filter of 10 seconds per email, using the Council’s estimate.

We note that the two lead officers involved in the audit together sent approximately 1500 emails in the relevant period. We consider that this is a useful guide to a conservative estimate of the number of emails that might be produced by a more focussed search.

Assuming that the initial search produced approximately 1500 emails, we accept that those emails would need to be reviewed in order to determine if they were in scope. We accept that 10 seconds per email (the Council’s estimate) is a reasonable estimate, which amounts to approximately 4 hours 10 minutes for the initial filter.

Of those emails, again taking a conservative approach, we assume that approximately 50% of those emails would be in scope. That leaves approximately 750 emails.

Given the nature of the information requested, we accept that there is likely to be material that will need to be reviewed in order to determine whether it is exempt under at least sections 44 and 40(2). Whilst some of the emails will be short and will not require reviewing for the application of exemptions, some contain attachments which will take a significant amount of time in excess of three minutes to review. Overall, we accept that three minutes per email is a reasonable average amount. 750 emails would take 37.5 hours to review.

Taking this conservative approach, and assuming that a more focussed search would produce significantly fewer results, the Council would still need to spend in excess of 41 hours responding to the request. In the context of the pressure on a Council’s resources, spending in excess of 41 hours responding to an information request represents an extremely significant burden on the Council. Spending an extra two minutes per email to make to redactions would take another 25 hours.

On that basis, although the Council could have carried out a more focussed search, we find that the burden would have remained extremely significant because of the breadth of the request.

Whilst the section 12 limit does not apply, it provides a useful comparison, because it indicates the maximum amount of time that parliament considered it appropriate to spend on the matters included in that section, however high the public interest in the requested information. The tribunal notes that 42 hours is over three times the section 12 limit, and with redaction time added in it is over five times the appropriate limit. As a cross check, this confirms our view that this is an extremely significant burden.

There is no suggestion in this case that there is any harassment or distress caused by the request and Mr. Meadowcroft has conducted himself in polite and appropriate manner throughout. There is also no suggestion of an inappropriate motive.

Weighed against the extremely significant burden on the Council in answering the request is the value of the request or the public interest in the requested information. We accept that there is a public interest in transparency and a particular public interest in transparency in relation to the spending of public money.

We are not persuaded that there is any real public interest in disclosure of the correspondence for the purposes of transparency in relation the reasons for the disclaimed audit. There is a clear explanation in the Audit Update to the Council for why there were two disclaimed audits. The Audit Update by Ernst and Young begins by setting out the national context:

Ernst and Young then set out their response:

Ernst and Young then explain the implications for the 2021/22 financial statements and the 2022/2023 audits:

The update continues with a section specifically on the status of the 2021/22 audit which includes the section read out by the appellant during the hearing.

The tribunal’s view is that this public document provides detailed information about the reasons why the audits have been disclaimed and the role of both the national context and the outstanding valuation evidence and the reasons why that evidence is outstanding. This is just one public audit document and there will be others, including audit committee minutes, other audit updates and annual reports of the auditors. The fact that the leader of the Council had informed Mr. Meadowcroft that there had been a dispute between Carter Jonas and the Council in relation to the valuation of assets does not, in our view, materially add to the value of disclosure of this correspondence for the purposes of transparency in relation to the disclaimed audits.

Mr. Meadowcroft was unable to explain to us what the disclosure of the correspondence would add to transparency in relation to the disclaimed audits. When asked, he made reference instead to an unrelated issue. He referred to the fact that there had been considerable spending by Councils on significant assets in times of low interest rates, which had decreased in value since Covid, and said that the correspondence would show ‘how we had got to a position’ where there is a disagreement about the value of assets. Whilst there is, as we acknowledge above, a general public interest in transparency in relation how public money is spent, we are not persuaded that the disclosure of correspondence in which there is a disagreement about the valuation of council assets will be of particular value in increasing public understanding on this issue.

Overall whilst we accept that there is some value in disclosure of the requested correspondence, looked at holistically and taking into account the extremely significant burden on the Council’s limited resources, we conclude that this request is a manifestly disproportionate and unjustified use of FOIA. The Council was entitled to rely on section 14.