I confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold some of the information you have requested; however, we consider the information to be exempt from disclosure under sections 12(1), 21 and 22 of the FOIA, as explained further below.
Section 12(1) (Cost of compliance exceeds limit)
Ordnance Survey estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit, which is set at £450 (18 hours).
By way of background, as part of the process of recording boundary changes, which are scheduled for release in May and October, we are constantly receiving changes and amendments in a variety of formats and differing scales from the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE), the equivalent Boundary Commissions for Scotland and Wales, and Local Authorities, up until the cut-off point in our production cycle. The updated boundaries will be available in the May 2021 release of Ordnance Survey’s Boundary-Line product, which will contain all boundaries that are Operative as of 6 May 2021. Please note that Boundary-Line is available for free, under the Open Government Licence. See this webpage for further details: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/boundaryline.
The current production platform does not support the addition of pre-operative boundaries and it would take a significant amount of time and resource to create, extract and compile a pre-operative dataset. This would be a significant undertaking, exceeding 18 hours, and is therefore not feasible at this current time due to the costs involved, the current editing platform limitations, and the fact that all our internal resourcing is being focused on meeting the current scheduled publication release dates.
Please also note that at the time this request was made, the cut-off point had not been reached and it is likely that we therefore would not have received all the recorded changes so as to enable us to compile a ‘full file of changes’ as requested; as such, it could not be guaranteed that if a data set were to be provided it would be a true representation of the actual May operative boundaries.
Section 12(1) is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the public interest test.
Section 21 (Information accessible by other means)
We also consider the information to be exempt under section 21 of the FOIA, as it is reasonably accessible by other means. The data on which revised boundaries are based is created by Local Authorities and the relevant Boundary Commissions.
Under the duty to provide information and assistance in accordance with section 16 of the FOIA, we can provide the following information which may assist you.
New boundary information for England is readily available to download as shapefiles via the LGBCE website at the following link: Frontpage | LGBCE Site . You may wish to view the FAQ’s page, more specifically the question titled ‘Can I see the boundaries proposed in your mapping more clearly’.
You may also wish to view the applicable statutory instruments, which can be found on the following government website Legislation.gov.uk
Section 21 is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the public interest test.
Section 22 (Information intended for future publication)
Lastly, as the operative boundaries are scheduled to be released in May 2021, we also consider the exemption at section 22 of the FOIA to be engaged. We consider that it is reasonable in all the circumstances for the information to be held until the scheduled date for publication, for the reasons already set out above, under Section 12(1).
In order to invoke section 22, we are required to undertake a public interest test. In this instance, we acknowledge the potential benefit in making the files available prior to the scheduled publication, in terms of aiding the promotion of public understanding and involvement in the democratic process. Having said that, we consider this benefit to be outweighed by the delay to the publication of assured and validated data, and by the confusion that could be caused by the additional errors that would be likely to be present in any data disclosed further to your FOI request, as a result of its not having been through the quality assurance and validation process. Also, the information on which the shapefiles are based is already in the public domain.