Hertfordshire County Council

The complainant requested information from Hertfordshire County Council (“the Council”) relating to recycling of Tesco’s products and packaging. The Council’s position is that it does not hold any information within the scope of the request.
The Commissioner’s decision is that the Council failed to comply with regulation 5(1) of the EIR as it did not interpret the request in line with the objective reading of the request.
The Commissioner requires the Council to take the following step to ensure compliance with the legislation: Either disclose the correspondence it holds relating to the deposit return scheme or, if the information is exempt from disclosure under the EIR, issue a valid refusal notice.