Annual Report 2008 - Text

Comment

This is the first Annual Report that looks at a full year of activity for the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information.  Four decisions were issued by my Office during the year; each of these is summarised at the end of this chapter. Staff from the Office of the Information  Commissioner who deal with this area of work have found it useful to keep in touch with developments in the Offices of the Information Commissioner in the United Kingdom and in Scotland who have experience of dealing with appeals under the Directive since 2005.

So far, the level of activity  has been low. There would appear to be two main reasons for this - the level of the fee for making of an appeal to my Office is discouraging appellants and there is a lack of awareness generally regarding the rights of access available to members of the public under the Access to the Information on the Environment provisions. 

Given the provisions of the Regulations, I have taken the view that,  in order for an appeal to be validly considered by my Office, the prescribed appeal fee must be paid.   A number of appellants and others have commented that,  in their view, the level of the fee is not in keeping with the Directive.   

Apart from the Guidance Notes published by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government when the Regulations were launched in 2007, I am not aware of any further guidelines, training support or public  information campaign in relation to the Regulations. Members of the public and staff of public authorities look to my Office from time to time for advice . As my role is to adjudicate on appeals submitted, it is not appropriate that specific advice be given by my staff on issues arising out of public authorities' consideration of a request. However, my Office does, of course, give general advice and direct callers to the relevant section of the Regulations and the Guidance Notes where appropriate. I am concerned that the relatively high percentage of appeals I received which were invalid because no proper internal review had been conducted might arise from a failure by public authorities to deal properly with requests for environmental information. It is vital that the staff of public authorities have sufficient training to give out accurate information to allow users of the Regulations to exercise their rights, including informing requesters of their rights of internal review and external appeal and the timeframes in which such appeals must be made.

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