Your Right To Know

Date: 9th May 2005
Being dealt with by: Timothy Nunns

Dear Heather Brooke,

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REGULATIONS 2004
REQUEST FOR INTERNAL REVIEW OF REFUSAL TO RELEASE FIRE INSPECTION REPORTS

The Information Access Manager has referred your letter of 13th April to me, to review the refusal to provide the information you requested.

You say “fire safety inspection reports do come under the definition of environmental information in the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.” You also say “the EIR overrides statutory prohibitions in domestic legislation … “. I agree that, at first sight, Regulation 5(6) would appear to over-ride legislation such as section 21 of the Fire Precautions Act; however, it is not clear that this Regulation would over-ride the right to privacy contained in the Human Rights Act, so the position is not as clear-cut as you suggest, on that issue.

The principal question is, of course, whether the reports you seek are included in the definition of “environmental information” in regulation 2(1) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. In my view, they are not, for the following reasons:

i) “built structures” are treated differently, in the statutory definition, from “land” - compare paragraphs (a) and (f), which include “land” with other elements of the environment” and “built structures” with other aspects of human activity;

ii) the premises which the Authority inspects for fire safety are “built structures”, rather than “land”;

iii) accordingly, information on built structures is “environmental information” only “inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment (mentioned in para. (a) of the definition) or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in (paras. (b) and (c) of the definition)”;

iv) information on “the state of human health and safety” is “environmental information” to the same extent;

v) a fire safety inspection report does not document how either human health & safety or a built structure may be affected by “elements of the environment”;

vi) neither does such a report document how those elements may be affected by factors identified in para. (b) of the definition or by measures identified in para. (c) of the definition; and

vii) such a report is not a measure “affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors referred to in (a) and (b) (of the definition)”; neither is it a measure “designed to protect those elements”.

It follows that the Authority’s fire safety inspection reports do not constitute “environmental information”. Since section 21 of the Fire Precautions Act 1971 prohibits disclosure of the reports, the Freedom of Information Act does not allow access to them, either.

Accordingly, in my view, the Authority’s Information Access Manager was correct in refusing your request for access to the Authority’s fire safety inspection reports.

You may wish to ask the Information Commissioner whether the Authority has dealt with your request in accordance with the requirements of the legislation. His address is: -

Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
tel: 01625 545745
email: mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk
web: www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/

Yours sincerely,

S.J.F. Starling
Head of Legal Services