Surrey County Council

The complainant has requested the underlying technical data to a flood risk assessment (FRA) conducted on behalf of Surrey County Council (the Council). The Council made a discretionary disclosure of the information to the complainant alone, but it refused to disclose it under the EIR, citing regulation 12(5)(e) (Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information) of the EIR. The Commissioner’s decision is that as the Council has failed to demonstrate that regulation 12(5)(e) is engaged, the information should have been disclosed under the EIR. He also found that the Council failed to comply with regulations 14(2) (timeliness) and 14(3) (citing of exceptions) of the EIR when refusing the request.  As all the withheld information has already been disclosed to the complainant, the Commissioner does not require further steps in this case.