Port St Mary Commissioners have been lambasted by the Information Commissioner and ordered to make public all documentation relating to the purchase of Manxonia House.

Jill Hamilton - wife of former clerk Alastair - complained that the authority had not complied with the Freedom of Information Act in responding to her request for all documentation relating to the purchase of Manxonia House.

The derelict building was bought by the local authority in 2016. Controversy has surrounded its purchase, the lack of prior public consultation and cost of refurbishment.

The authority, after taking advice from lawyers and the local government unit, replied: ’This (FoI) was not a specific request and would been a burden on the authority to complete.’

They released various documents such as plumbing and a structural report but Mrs Hamilton was not satisfied with this response.

The Information Commissioner decided: ’Port St Mary Commissioners has not demonstrated that the practical refusal reasons set outâ?¦ applies i.e. the request for information is vexatious, malicious, frivolous, misconceived or lacking in substance.’

The decision continues: that the authority ’did not provide advice and assistance to the requester as required â?¦ did not respond to the request within the standard processing period’ and did not ’comply’ with the original refusal notice as it referred to more than one request.

In addition, the authority ’did not state that an absolute exception has been applied to some information or why’ and that the authority ’has not justified its application of any other exemptions’.

The information commissioner said they did not ’maintain records of searches undertaken ... undertake sufficiently thorough searches, for example, for the minutes of the Manxonia House subcommittee.’

The local authority must provide ’copies of the information in, or a precise hyperlink, for each board meeting minutes relevant to the request.’

It must review the information referred to in the confidential annex to establish what information is within the scope of the request ’and give the requester the information that falls within the scope of the request party subject to any practical refusal reason or any exemption that is engaged and can be justified together with a further refusal notice issued if necessary.’

They must provide copies of the minutes of the subcommittee, justify how any exemption applies to any of the information and subject to the application of any exemption, and hand over those minutes.

The authority must ’undertake further searches to establish whether there is any other information pertinent to the request that was not previously located and provide details of the searches to the commissioner, provide the information located as a result, justify how any exemption applies to any of the information located and give the information to the requester.’

Commissioners’ chairman Michelle Haywood said: ’There is confidential information relating to staff matters we were concerned about making public as we have signed an agreement (with Mr Hamilton) not to disclose information about each other.’

She added: ’We tried at every step. The advice on FoI requests is not very clear to local authorities.

’Our staff worked hard and tried to comply. It is a burden. We are disappointed.’