Information Commissioner's Office

Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

12 October 2015, Central government

The complainant has requested wide-ranging information about two meetings between the Prince of Wales and two Secretaries of State. DEFRA identified that the information described in the request spanned two access regimes, the FOIA and the EIR. It refused to comply with the request on the basis that to do so would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12(1) of the FOIA; and, to the extent that it also sought access to environmental information, responding to the request would also be manifestly unreasonable under regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR. The Information Commissioner’s decision is that complying with the request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under section 12(1) of the FOIA for some of the information. In relation to the information which constitutes environmental information, it is also a manifestly unreasonable request by virtue of cost under regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR and the public interest favours maintaining the exception. DEFRA is therefore entitled to refuse to comply with the request. However, the Commissioner found that DEFRA breached regulation 11(3) of the EIR by failing to provide an internal review. The Commissioner requires no steps to be taken.

FOI 12: Not upheld EIR 11(3): Upheld EIR 12(4)(b): Not upheld