CaRT breaches regulations—twice!

THE Information Commissioner has issued a decision notice confirming that Canal and River Trust has breached Regulation 5 of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), writes Allan Richards.

Regulation 5 requires that the Trust respond to a request for information within 20 working days but it has been found that CaRT took over six months to respond to a request and only produced the information after being ordered to do so by the Commissioner.

Failings

The Commissioner also found failings regarding the Trust's handling of the complainant's request for an internal review (which was submitted following CaRT's failure to respond to the request within 20 working days as required by law).

CaRT retrospectively claimed that it had carried out a review within 40 days, as required by law, but admitted that it had not communicated details of its findings.

The Trust's response to a request for similar information over a different date range was also criticised in the decisions notice.

Regulations

CaRT is subject to both the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004. It should automatically consider any request for information under both regimes but rarely does.

The Trust has 28 days to appeal the decision notice otherwise it will be published on the Information Commissioner's website.

[This is the second decision notice that the Information Commissioner has issued within a few months. In March this year the Commissioner published a notice that found that CaRT was wrong to refuse an information request regarding licences issued to boats at a particular mooring.]