From Natural England, 23 June
Dear Dr Avery,
Access to information request – Acknowledgement – Request No RFI 5105
Thank you for your request for the information detailed in your email below, which we received on 18 June 2020.
We are dealing with your request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
Your request is being considered and we will send out our response within the legal deadline of 20 working days which is 17 July 2020. If, for any reason we are unable to meet the deadline we will keep you fully informed of the reasons for this.
To Natural England, 19 July
Dear Natural England,
You have not replied to my request ‘as soon as possible’ and so you are in breach of Regulation 5(2) (EIR 2004).
You have not replied within the the legal deadline of 20 working days and so you are in further breach of Regulation 5(2) (EIR 2004).
You have not indicated to me that you need ‘an extension of time to deal with a request which is complex or voluminous’ probably because my request was not complex or voluminous, and you have not kept me fully informed and therefore you are in breach of Regulation 6(2)(a), or Regulation 7(1)(3) or both.
Please send me the requested information straight way.
Please treat this email as a complaint.
[registration_form]
What larks !
They are probably too busy working on Useless Eustices’ plans for a green recovery or there will be some other fatuous excuse for non-compliance.
You are doing a grand job Mark. Keep the pressure full on Natural England because if is relaxed this will only be transferred up to the politicians who would like nothing better than to churn out the same old platitudes and do absolutely nothing for nature and our wildlife while supporting their own vested interests.
To be fair, I suspect they may not have their full complement of staff given the circumstances. A delayed response to an FoI request wouldn’t be the hill I’d choose to die on, personally.
But a bit like raptor killing – isn’t it the pattern rather than the individual “one-off” that is the important hill to keep challenging?
Contact the IOC and you’ll get traction soon enough, the excuse that they’re understaffed doesn’t wash, they’ll all be working from home with plenty of time on their hands.