21 November 2022
Your request
Please could you kindly send me any information you may hold relating to persons who are/were known to the Council via any of the following teams and who have died with:
- no known next of kin (defined as blood relatives) OR
- where you have been unable to engage with or locate any KNOWN next of kin,
Please provide details of cases that have occurred or come to your attention since 1/9/2022 to the day of your reply or as close as possible.
The name of the team responsible varies but exists within all County Councils, London Boroughs, Unitary & Metropolitan District Councils.
Team names:
* Deputyship
* Appointeeship
* Adult social care
* Client Finance Team
* Protection of Property
* Financial Assessment
* Other team name whereby Council official(s) were charged with handling the financial affairs of the (now deceased) person
Please provide as much of the following information as you can:
1. full names of deceased persons,
2. dates of death,
3. marital status,
4. maiden surnames of married or widowed females,
5. dates of birth or ages at death,
6. last known addresses,
7. estimated value of estates,
8. date(s) when the information was passed (or information that
is about to be or likely to be passed) to the Government Legal Department (formerly Treasury Solicitor) or the Duchy of Lancaster or Cornwall or any other 3rd party, or, confirmation that this will not be happening and the reason why.
Our response
I can confirm that the London Borough of Lambeth holds this information. However, we have not provided the requested information as we believe that the following exemptions apply:
Section 21 – Information accessible to the applicant by other means; Section 22 (Information intended for future publication) and Section 31 (Law enforcement)
(a) the prevention of crime.
Section 21 – Information accessible to the applicant by other means
The information you are requesting is exempt from the requirements of section one of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). General right of access to information held by public authorities as the information you are seeking is already publicly available.
The Freedom of Information Act states that information is exempt if it is reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means. Lambeth Council also makes general information in relation to your request publicly available at the below link: https://beta.lambeth.gov.uk/births-deaths-ceremonies-and-citizenship/deaths-and- funerals-sub-site/public-health-funerals
Information on previous responses to Freedom of Information requests, Environmental Information Regulations requests; and responses to regularly requested information can be found on our website via: https://beta.lambeth.gov.uk/about-council/privacy- data-protection/freedom-information/find-regularly-requested-historic-requests
Section 22 (Information intended for future publication)
Information on the Council’s Public Health Funerals is published on the Council’s website annually, or as soon as practicable thereafter. We have therefore not provided the specific data requested as we believe that the following exemption applies: Section 22 (Information intended for future publication). Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 states at the time a public authority receives a request for it, (1) Information is exempt information if—
- the information is held by the public authority with a view to its publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date (whether determined or not),
- the information was already held with a view to such publication at the time when the request for information was made, and
- it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information should be withheld from disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph (a).
The application of this exemption is subject to a public interest test.
Public interest test considerations
Factors in favour of disclosure
- Lambeth Council acknowledges that disclosure would increase transparency and improve the public’s understanding of this issue.
Factors in favour of maintaining the exemption
- Allowing the proper running of the organisation in accordance with established practices and following procedures set down to publish information held.
- The timetable properly requires internal or limited consideration of the information prior to its public release.
The public interest in maintaining the exemption remains as there is a clear timetable set for the additional information to be published and to do so any sooner would divert Council resources in officer time and circumvent the due process for ratification of the information.
Section 31 (Law enforcement) (a) the prevention of crime. The grounds for applying this exemption are that disclosure of the names, date and place of death of the deceased with no next of kin may make the assets of that deceased person vulnerable to fraud or theft.
The assets of the estates of the deceased need to be secured and disclosure of the information may lead to the commission of offences and cause loss to the unsecured estates.
As this exemption is qualified and prejudice-based, we are obliged to outline the harm in disclosure and explain why we consider that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
Harm in Disclosure
We have noted the ICO’s Decisions for similar requests for such information, including Luton & Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which outlined what is considered to be the harm in disclosure of such information.
The Information Commissioner acknowledged that disclosure of properties would cause harm, as these would include disclosure of recently empty properties and
"there would be prejudice to the prevention of crime...in those circumstances where disclosure of the addresses of the recently deceased identify a residential property as empty."
The Information Commissioner acknowledged disclosure of personal details to the world at large could enable a person to use such information to falsely obtain documents such as birth certificates, passports and driving licences which could then be used for the commission of crimes such as driving without insurance, fraudulent credit applications, committing bigamy, tax evasions, money laundering, drug smuggling, terrorism and people trafficking.
The Information Commissioner acknowledged the chance of prejudice being suffered from disclosure of such information is more than a hypothetical possibility; it is a real and significant risk.
Public Interest in Disclosure
We appreciate the benefits in transparency and that disclosure would improve public knowledge & debate on this issue.
We appreciate disclosure would assist in the process of identifying those who have an entitlement to the estate of a deceased person.
Public Interest in maintaining the exemption
In Luton & Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Information Commissioner outlined that there is an inherently strong public interest in avoiding likely prejudice to the prevention of crime, and outlined the crime in such cases would be likely to include a diverse range from anti-social behaviour, criminal damage, arson, organised groups stripping empty properties to identity fraud and the crimes that can be committed using false documents.
The Information Commissioner acknowledged tackling issues like these would involve significant public expense and considered that it is in the public interest to protect property and to ensure that public resources are used efficiently.
The Information Commissioner acknowledged that there is a strong public interest in avoiding personal distress to the direct victims of the crime and, in the case of crime related to empty properties, to those in the wider neighbourhood who may be affected. The Information Commissioner confirmed the public interest in withholding such information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.
In accordance with Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this response acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.