Environment Agency Chief Executive Philip Duffy, has admitted that Environment Agency officials are “worried about revealing the true state of what is going on” with the environment.
At the UK River Summit in Morden, South London, he told an audience that the Environment Agency have ignored freedom of information (FOI) requests in an attempt to hide the “embarrassing” state of the environment in England.
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, members of the public have the right to see certain information recorded by public authorities, including the Environment Agency.
Requests for environmental information, which includes things like carbon emissions or the environment’s effect on human health, fall under the Environmental Information Regulations SI 2004/3391. These Regulations specifically establish an access regime which allows people to request environmental information from public authorities. All environmental information held by a public authority must be progressively made available to the public by easily accessible electronic means.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), who oversees the law on the Freedom of Information Act, has warned the Environment Agency that the public have a right to have their requests answered and ensure transparency. They said:
“People have the legal right to promptly receive information they’re entitled to and we take action when they don’t. We’ve been clear that public sector leaders should take transparency seriously and see the benefits it brings, including scrutiny of processes and approaches that can then benefit from improvement.”
Speaking at the Summit, Philip Duffy commented:
“I see these letters and these FOI requests and I’ve got great volumes of them, and I see local officers going through quite a contorted processes to not answer when they know, often, the answer but it’s embarrassing.
“They do it because they are frightened. They are worried about revealing the true state of what’s going on, they’re worried about reaction from NGOs and others, and possibly from the government, about the facts of the situation. And they’re often working at a local level but in a very nationally charged political environment, which is very difficult for them.”
The Environment Agency were served with an enforcement notice by the ICO over evidence that the regulator was not meeting their statutory duties in relation to providing environmental information when requested to do so.
A spokesperson on behalf of the Environment Agency commented on these latest revelations:
“Philip is completely committed to the highest standards of transparency, as he repeatedly stressed at the River Summit. He wants to make more EA data readily available, and we are already looking at how this can be achieved. He was referring to the concern that some staff working on water feel due to the current tone of the debate, which is often not constructive. This does not impact the process of releasing the information.”
