Disclosure demands set to grow

Energy, transport and utility companies are set to face unprecedented demands to disclose information about their activities after new regulations come into force on January 1.
The Freedom of Information Act does not allow the public to request information directly from the private sector. However, the lesser-known Environmental Information Regulations 2004, which take effect at the same time, will compel many companies that provide public services relating to the environment to supply information.
But the final draft of the regulations was approved just before Christmas and does not specify precisely which companies are covered for which services. As a result, many companies remain confused about the scope of the rules.
Phil Michaels, head of legal affairs at the campaign group Friends of the Earth, said they would come as a “massive shock" to some companies.
The EIRs will require public bodies and some private sector organisations, such as former state-owned groups that have been privatised, to disclose "environmental information". But Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said that definition covered more data than many might think.
He said the regulations would be likely to cover issues as diverse as GM crops, food industry lobbying, Gulf war syndrome, asthma, airport expansion, congestion charging and hunting.
Mr Frankel said the EIRs would often be used to gain information since they offered access to a wider range of bodies and provided for fewer exemptions than the Freedom of Information Act.
However, ministers will retain a veto over the disclosure of information sought under the EIRs, as they do under FOI, even though a veto was not included in early drafts.
The regulations are expected to cover waste companies, water companies, energy providers, train companies, airport operators and power stations.
Yet Mr Michaels said many groups were still unprepared for the openness regime. Friends of the Earth had found great variations in the preparations taken by about 40 companies in a recent survey to assess their readiness, he said. Some insisted they would not be covered by the new rules.
He predicted a rash of legal challenges to companies that refused to acknowledge they were bound by the rules, since the regulations did not categorically list the groups that were covered.
Mr Michaels said: “Waste companies that carry out work for local authorities will be subject to the new information laws. A recent document obtained from the DTI showed that coal-fired power stations were very concerned because they will be forced to release environmental information to the public on request."
The rules would cover more than just pollution, he said, with cost-benefit analyses, background information, viability reports, financial information that influenced decisions and previously undisclosed studies all likely to be sought.
Organisations and public bodies could still be compelled to disclose information classed as exempt under the regulations if it was in the public interest. Mr Michaels predicted that th& regulator would receive many "public interest" challenges to disclosure refusals.
He said: "We are going to have companies judging what is in the public interest and I have no doubt that is going to be an area of significant controversy”.