Information Commissioner's Office

Summary: Nottinghamshire County Council (NCC) entered into a public finance initiative contract, with Veolia Environmental Services (Veolia) to outsource certain waste management functions in order to enable NCC to discharge its statutory waste management obligations. The complainant asked to see the contract and related documents. NCC eventually provided much of the information requested but withheld some citing the Regulation 12(5)(e) and 13(1) exceptions under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) after considering the balance of the public interest. The complainant did not press for the Commissioner to decide the Regulation 13(1) matters and the Commissioner has not done so. The Commissioner also decided, following decisions in earlier leading cases, that the Regulation 12(5)(e) exception had been correctly engaged by NCC for some of the information. For some of information withheld under 12(5)(e) the balance of the public interest in maintaining the exception did not outweigh that in disclosure. The remaining information was correctly refused as the balance of the public interest in maintaining the exception outweighed that in disclosing the information. For some information the Regulation 12(9) exception applied. In not making certain information available NCC breached regulations 5(1) and 5(2). The Commissioner also decided that delays by NCC had breached regulations 7(1), 7(3) and 14(2). In a separate legal process, the complainant asked NCC for some of the relevant information under the provisions of the Audit Commission Act 1998. The High Court granted access. This decision notice is currently under appeal to the Information Tribunal.
Section of Act/EIR & Finding: EIR 5 - Complaint Upheld, EIR 5 - Complaint Upheld, EIR 7 - Complaint Upheld, EIR 7 - Complaint Upheld, EIR 12.5.e - Complaint Partly Upheld, EIR 12 - Complaint Partly Upheld, EIR 14 - Complaint Upheld