Department for Energy Security & Net Zero

The complainant submitted a request to Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) seeking information about the potential environmental impact of Shell’s Brent decommissioning project in the North Sea. BEIS located five documents falling with the scope of the request but sought to withhold these on the basis of regulation 12(4)(d) (material in the course of completion, unfinished documents and incomplete data). The Commissioner’s decision is that the information falls within the scope of regulation 12(4)(d) and that in all the circumstances of the case the public interest favours maintaining the exception.