The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 are a Statutory Instrument (SI) that regulates access to British Government and other public sector information on the environment. Like the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) the Regulations provide a statutory right of access to information. They were made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under the authority provided by the European Communities Act 1972, entering into force on 1 January 2005, along with the FOIA.
They are very similar to that act in operation, but there are a number of important differences. One is that requests for information under the Regulations do not have be made in writing, they can be made verbally. The exemptions that public sector authorities can claim under the Regulations are structured somewhat differently as well. In many cases they are narrower in their scope and application. As with the FOIA, public authorities have 20 working days from the receipt of a request to provide the information to the requester. The deadline can be extended to 40 working days for requests that are particularly voluminous.
Upon entry into force of these regulations, they repealed the Environmental Information Regulations 1992 and the Environmental Information Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 and two other SIs that amended those regulations.
