We can confirm that Newark and Sherwood District Council holds this information. However we are withholding that information since we consider that the exemption under section 21 and section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to it.

Section 21 - information accessible to the applicant by other means.

The information is available to you from the Councils website.  We publish a quarterly Business Rates report showing Discretionary Reliefs, Exemptions, Mandatory Reliefs, Retail Reliefs, Rateable Value and Small Business Rates Reliefs. For more information please visit our publication scheme on our website

Section 22 - information is held by a public authority with a view to its publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date (whether determined or not).

This information on the council’s website is updated at the beginning of each quarter.

This is a qualified exemption under the FOI Act which means that consideration must also be given to whether in all the circumstances of the case the public interest favouring disclosure is greater than the public interest in maintaining the exemption.

Public interest considerations in favour of disclosing the information you have sought:

• Releasing the requested information shows the openness and transparency of the council

However, there is also a public interest argument against disclosure:

• Early release of the requested information would not be comprehensive as research and could therefore be misleading.

Therefore having reviewed the position it is determined that in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest in withholding the requested information and maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure of the requested information.

Therefore, this serves as a refusal notice as required under section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.