Fish Legal and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency

Scottish Information Commissioner Decision – 31 Mar 2009

Fish Legal requested information relating to specified pollution incidents – whether exempt from disclosure by virtue of FOI (Scotland) Act 2002, s 39(2) as environmental information and also excepted from disclosure under the EI(S)Rs – Commissioner found that SEPA had been correct to deal with Fish Legal's information request under s 39(2) but had partially failed to deal with the request in accordance with the EI(S)Rs – Commissioner found that SEPA was incorrect in its application of reg 10(5)(b) (relating to the course of justice, fair trials and the conduct of criminal investigations) in relation to statements made by SEPA employees, but correct in its application of this exception to the remaining information.

Decision 038/2009

For full text, please download: Decision 038/2009

Mr Rob Edwards of the Sunday Herald & the Scottish Ministers

Scottish Information Commissioner Decision – 3 Apr 2009

Request from environment editor of the Sunday Herald for copies of all documents contained in a specified file relating to nuclear waste disposal – Commissioner concluded that the information under consideration was environmental information and so he considered the case under the EI(S)Rs 2004 – found that all of the documents withheld were internal communications, and so were exempted from disclosure under reg 10(4)(e) – after consideration of the public interest test, the Commissioner required disclosure of certain information.

Decision 044/2009

For full text, please download: Decision 044/2009