First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber)

FT/EA/2025/0038 - [2025] UKFTT 01205 (GRC)

Fecha: 14-Oct-2025

Section 1

This is an appeal against a decision of the Information Commissioner (the “Commissioner”) dated 02 December 2024, reference IC-311115-N9K8 (the “Decision Notice”).

The hearing took place via CVP on Friday 19 September 2025. The Appellant represented himself. The Respondent did not attend.

Factual background

The appeal relates to the application of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the FOIA”). It concerns information held by Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council (“the Council”).

The request and response

The Appellant made the request which is the subject of this appeal on 22 April 2024 in writing as follows:

“Businesses that received a Bounce Back Challenge Fund grant had to submit a ‘Declaration of Final Spend’ showing how the grant had been spent. I would like to request a copy of the final submission sent to the Economic Development Team by:
•
Adventure is Out There
•
Venator Capital Limited
•
Bournemouth Sevens Limited
•
Limetools Limited
Please include any evidence (such as supplier invoices) that were also provided to show how the grant was spent”.

The Council responded in writing on 26 April 2024 as follows:

“The Council will not be considering your request, dated 22/04/24 concerning information pertaining to the Bounce Back Challenge Fund, as previously advised to you under S14 and S17(6) in the Councils internal review response to FOI 8074 dated 10/03/23 [BELOW], which is attached again for your reference”.

The Appellant lodged a complaint with the Commissioner on 03 June 2024, stating that “I disagree with the public body’s refusal to provide the information I requested”. He stated that the background to his request was a scheme called the Bounce Back Challenge Fund (“the BBCF”) that had been created by the Council in 2021 to distribute £3 million of Additional Restrictions Grant that had been provided by the Government to help businesses that were struggling to trade due to Covid restrictions. He stated that an award of £70,000 had been provided to a business called “The Lagoon” by the Economic Development Team. His request to the Council on 22 April 2024 had been triggered by a notification that he had received from Companies House that the company were late in filing their accounts. He stated that the yearly accounts suggested that Adventure is Out There 365 “The Lagoon” may not have spent the £70,000 grant and so he had therefore asked to see the “Declaration of Final Spend” and invoices to see whether they had done so.

The Commissioner accepted the Appellant’s complaint on 21 June 2024.

The Commissioner contacted the Council on 04 September 2024 to request additional information including why the Council believed that the request was vexatious, why it would have been unreasonable to expect the Council to issue a refusal notice, and for details of prior contact between the Appellant and the Council.

The Appellant emailed the Council on 02 October 2024 regarding his complaint, stating that he wanted to provide an update on one of the grants as Adventure is Out There 365 had filed for voluntary liquidation and that he had raised concerns about the grant that they had been given not being spent.

10.

The Council provided a substantive response to the Commissioner on 04 October 2024. In that response, they stated the following:

Notwithstanding the fact that they had informed the Appellant that they would not respond to any further requests on the topic of the BBCF following their internal review of FOI #8074, they had responded to the request that is the subject of this appeal as a matter of courtesy and due to the passage of time since FOI #8074;

The Council asserted that the Appellant was seeking to reopen a grievance that dated back to July 2021 and that, even if they responded to the request, it would be unlikely to satisfy him;

Prior to FOI #8074, the Appellant had made seven requests for information on the same/similar topic of the BBCF. The majority of those requests had produced excessive volumes of email correspondence from the Appellant – by way of example, the Council referred to one request relating to the scoring process for the Appellant’s own application for a grant which had generated more than 100 emails;

The Council stated that, since the Appellant’s own application for a grant in 2021 had been unsuccessful, he had “made several unsubstantiated allegations about the administration and governance of the BBCF. Initially concerning the outcome of his own application, disagreeing with the Council’s decision to not award his business a grant. This progressed to allegations of wrongdoing regarding the governance of the scheme and actions/statements of Officers and Councillors. Once this line of complaints was not successful the applicants focus turned to the administration of those companies who had been awarded grants. The applicant alleged the Council had not awarded the grants fairly and opined that several of the companies were not deserving of the grant”;

The Council stated that the Appellant had also “made persistent complaints and emails were sent to the Chief Executive, Senior Officers and elected Councillors of the Authority”. A complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman of malpractice by the Appellant concerning the BBCF awards and governance was not upheld;

The Council determined that they had “allowed the matter to go on for too long” by continually responding to the Appellant’s follow-up emails to FOI responses. They pointed to the Appellant’s “scatter gun email correspondence” and direct contact with individual officers who were responding in isolation;

In identifying the “tipping point”, the Council stated that “when considering the history and background of the applicants requests concerning the BBCF it was found that there was continual, unreasonable persistence in trying to re-open questions which had already been comprehensively addressed by the Council or generating further questions and email correspondence when the applicant was not happy with the response. There was also an underlying derogatory tone and apparent mistrust to many of the applicant’s correspondence, often targeting individuals. It was also clear the applicant had no respect for the Councils FOI obligations to the code of practice or process, ignoring advice and several warnings that requests were triggering aspects of section 14”.

11.

The Council noted that the Appellant had not made any further requests for information concerning the BBCF following the internal review of FOI #8074 in March 2023 until the request that is the subject of the appeal in April 2024.

12.

However, in April 2023, the Appellant had contacted the Council to request permission for his mobile coffee business to be positioned at a local park to serve coffee on an informal basis when a parkrun was taking place. His request was refused by the Council as it was not following the correct procurement protocol. The Appellant sought to challenge this decision in the following months, culminating in fifteen FOI requests being made, nine internal reviews, and hundreds of emails being sent by the Appellant.

13.

On 13 November 2025, the Appellant sent a further email to the Commissioner to give another update on one of the grants that was the subject of his request of 22 April 2024. He provided a link to two online articles and reiterated his belief that the annual accounts for Adventure is Out There 365 Ltd indicated that they had not spent the £70,000 that they had been given.

Background – previous FOI request, reference #8074

14.

On 20 January 2023, the Appellant submitted an FOI request to the Council as follows:

“Have you seen any monitoring reports for the Bounce Back Challenge Scheme. I would be grateful if you could confirm if you have and I would like to request a copy of the latest version. This is an FOI request”.

15.

The request was allocated the reference number FOI #8074. An initial response was provided to the Appellant on 09 February 2023, in which the Council stated that there was work ongoing to produce a monitoring report by the Council and that the report was planned for release at the end of March 2023. The response also stated that the Council considered the response to FOI#8074 to be closed and that, if the Appellant was not satisfied with the response, he should follow the procedure for an internal review.

16.

However, the Appellant had continued to make repeated requests for a copy of the monitoring report directly to the Chief Executive, the Director of Economic Development, and Councillors. A refusal notice was issued which advised that, as the report would be published in due course, section 22 of FOIA was applicable. Following further correspondence from the Appellant, the matter was referred for an internal review on/around 13 February 2023.

17.

A response to the internal review was provided on 10 March 2023. The detailed response indicated that multiple requests had been submitted in relation to the monitoring report to multiple councillors, both before and after the formal FOI request. A response had been issued on 25 January 2023, which had included information on how to seek an internal review. The Appellant had continued to send emails regarding the requests, often copied to multiple individuals.

18.

The response to the internal review noted that, on 07 February 2023, the Council wrote to the Appellant and drew his attention to section 14(1) of FOIA, highlighting that his continued questions and requests on the same topic were burdensome. Guidance was provided as to how he could improve his requests for information.

19.

Further correspondence was received from the Appellant after the response of 09 February 2023, in which he continued to express his dissatisfaction as to issues concerning the BBCF.

20.

The review findings included the following conclusions:

“There appears to be an underlying grievance leading to unreasonable persistence from you in continual attempts to re-open an issue which has been addressed by the Council.
“There is increasing levels of harassment as evidenced in more recent emails, with the use of accusatory language, casting aspersion against the Council and individual Officers, which is unacceptable.
There is improper use of the FOI Act, abusing your rights of access to information by using the legislation to express your displeasure at previous responses and continual attempts to circumvent the process which the Council considers to be unreasonable behaviour”.
“Since June 2021, the Council has addressed concerns and questions you have raised on this topic through extensive email correspondence with Officers and Councillors, 8 FOI requests, 3 internal reviews, a formal complaint through to stage 2, direct emails to the ARG3 stream and questions to Council and Committee. You also referred a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman in July 2022. The outcome of which found no reasons to substantiate your claims concerning irregular conduct of the scheme administration”.

21.

The outcome of the internal review upheld the response that had been provided to the request for the monitoring report and also noted that s14(1) of FOIA “was appropriate at this stage”.

22.

At the conclusion of the letter giving the outcome of the internal review, the Council stated the following:

“Please note S17(6) of FOIA, the Council will not respond, or issue a refusal notice to any request or follow up emails on the same/similar topic from yourself”.

23.

The Council subsequently stated that the monitoring report was published shortly after the response to the internal review was provided on 10 March 2023. Following publication, the Appellant had written to the Chair of the Audit & Governance Committee, raising further questions about the governance of the BBCF. The Chair had responded to advise that they were satisfied that appropriate monitoring and governance of the scheme had been undertaken.

Decision notice

24.

The Commissioner’s decision was that the request was vexatious under section 14(1) of FOIA and that the Council was entitled to rely on section 17(6) of FOIA to decline to issue a further refusal notice.

25.

In summary, the reasons for the Commissioner’s decision were:

Section 17(6) of FOIA exists to give public authorities some form of protection against those who continue to make information requests. Section 17(6) of FOIA is not, and should not, be used as a ‘blanket ban’ on an individual exercising their rights under FOIA. However, where a request exhibits the same features that caused a previous request to be refused as vexatious, it is likely that that request will also be vexatious;

Whilst he noted that the Appellant had a sense of grievance concerning the administration and governance of the BBCF, he also noted that the Appellant had made many requests for information regarding the BBCF, and that some of those requests had generated significant levels of follow up correspondence from the Appellant;

The Commissioner agreed with the Council that it was likely that compliance with the request would generate further follow up emails and/or further questions and requests;

The Commissioner attached significant weight to the impact on the Council’s resources as a result of the pattern of the Appellant’s behaviour;

He was satisfied that matters relating to the BBCF had been fully considered by the Council and that the Appellant’s grievance had not been substantiated by the Local Government Ombudsman (“LGO”). He agreed that the Appellant appeared to be attempting to re-open matters that had already been thoroughly considered;

Whilst the Commissioner was prepared to accept that the Appellant’s earlier requests may have had a purpose and value to them, the Appellant’s ongoing behaviour and the frequency and volume of his requests and follow up correspondence had led to a burden on the Council that was wholly disproportionate;

In conclusion, the Commissioner decided that “Taking into account the historic background of the request, including protracted and voluminous communication with various departments of the Council, the Commissioner is satisfied that the request of 22 April 2024 is a continuation of the same pattern of behaviour that caused the complainant’s previous request to be refused as vexatious. Requiring the Council to issue a fresh refusal notice, even if only to refuse the request as vexatious once again, would create yet more work for the Council and further waste its resources”.

26.

The Commissioner was therefore satisfied that the Council was entitled to rely on section 17(6) of FOIA as it would have been unreasonable to expect it to issue a fresh refusal notice in the circumstances.

27.

Following receipt of the Decision Notice, the Appellant sent an email to the Commissioner on 03 December 2024 asking for a call to discuss the Decision Notice with the Commissioner. In that email, the Appellant denied that he had ever made a vexatious request. He asserted that many of the points that had been raised in the Decision Notice were untrue and had been misrepresented by the Council. As an example, the Appellant referred to recent requests that he had made regarding the possibility of setting up his mobile coffee business in a nearby park when the parkrun took place every week. He stated that a monitoring report had never been published in relation to the BBCF, and that the Council was mis-using the FOIA to withhold information and to make false allegations about him.