Response 2530440

Response to request for information

Reference

2530440

Response date

10 November 2023

Request

Would you please be able to provide copy invoices for electricity, gas and water supplied to 1 Council owned or operated, non-residential property for 2021, 2022 and 2023, in pdf format? Ideally I would like to receive these copy invoices for one of the Council's larger buildings, but if that is in any way problematic, copy invoices for a random building would suffice. To clarify, I would like to receive copies of actual invoices as PDFs for this period, not a summary of utility consumption and costs.

Response

The Council has a single generic account of which Council owned sites are billed against. To pull out the information you have requested per utility for a single site over three years, as you have requested, would be a significant undertaking of officer time and would in our view exceed the cost and time parameters allowed under the Act. As such we believe section 12(1) is engaged.

The Council already publishes detail of expenditure on its website including expenditure on utilities  - see Expenditure Over £500 - Rushcliffe Borough Council where details for the period of time you have requested can be found. As the information you are requesting is already reasonably accessible by other means we believe the exemption under section 21 is engaged.

Based on the engagement of  sections 12(1) and 21the Council will not be responding further on this occasion.

You are of course welcome to consider reframing your request to narrow the scope of your request so we may be better able to meet your request. However,  please note any information sent will  be copies not originals and subject to redaction in line with data protection legislation in order to safeguard the Council against fraud and misuse.