Information Commissioner's Office

Department for Transport

8 March 2016, Central government

The complainant has requested information about HS2 project. The Department for Transport (DfT) refused to provide the requested information under section 35(1)(a), section 40(2) and section 43(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and as far as the withheld information is environmental, regulation 12(4)(d), 12(4)(e) and 12(5)(e) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). The Commissioner’s decision is that the DfT was correct to deal with parts of the request under FOIA and parts under EIR. The Commissioner has numbered the documents in the order they appear on the ‘Explanatory Spreadsheet’ under each separate request which was provided by the DfT.  Part 1 of the request: the DfT correctly applied regulation 12(5)(e) EIR. Part 2 of the request: the DfT correctly applied section 40(2) FOIA to the redactions made to document 1 and in part to document 9. It incorrectly applied this exemption to parts of document 9 and document 10 and 16 in full. It correctly applied regulation 12(4)(d) EIR to documents 8, 11-15 and 17-19. It incorrectly applied regulation 12(5)(e) EIR to documents 20 and 22-26. Part 3 of the request: the DfT incorrectly applied regulation 12(4)(e) EIR to the five documents to which this exception has been applied. However the Commissioner pro-actively applied regulation 13 EIR to two paragraphs identified in the email dated 8 March 2013. Part 4 of the request: The DfT correctly applied regulation 12(4)(d) EIR to the eight documents to which this exception has been applied. The Commissioner requires the public authority now disclose the following information: Part 2 of the request: documents 9 (in part), 10, 16, 20 and 22-26. Part 3 of the request: All five documents withheld apart from the two paragraphs identified in the email dated 8 March 2013 as the Commissioner pro-actively applied regulation 13 EIR to this information.

FOI 40: Partly upheld EIR 12(4)(d): Not upheld EIR 12(4)(e): Upheld EIR 12(5)(e): Partly upheld