Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council

The complainant has requested information about an application for a lawful development certificate. To the extent that the information was not already publicly available, the above public authority relied on regulation 12(4)(e) of the EIR (internal communications). The Commissioner’s decision is that the public authority has correctly applied regulation 12(4)(e) and that the balance of the public interest favours maintaining the exception. The public authority breached regulation 5(2) of the EIR as it failed to identify all information within the scope of the request within 20 working days. The Commissioner does not require further steps to be taken.