Historic Royal Palaces

In a seven part request, the complainant has requested information about any meetings or communications between The Prince of Wales and the Chief Executive and/or the Chair of Historic Royal Palaces between January 2014 and January 2015. He has requested this information under the EIR and the FOIA. Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) released some environmental information within scope of part 4 of the request and advised that it does not hold any other environmental information within scope of parts 2, 3, 5 and 7 that it has not previously released. HRP released non-environmental information within scope of part 6 of the request and relied on section 37(2) of the FOIA (communications with the heir to the Throne) to neither confirm nor deny it holds any non-environmental information within scope of parts 1-5 and part 7. The Commissioner’s decision is as follows: The information requested in parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the request can be categorised as environmental information within the meaning of regulation 2(1) of the EIR. On the balance of probabilities, HRP does not hold any further environmental information within scope of parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the complainant’s request and has complied with regulation 5(1) of the EIR. Under section 37(2) of the FOIA HRP is not obliged to confirm or deny whether it holds any non-environmental information within scope of parts 1-5 and part 7 of the request. The Commissioner does not require HRP to take any remedial steps.