Regulatory Update: 16/2012
Issued: 26 April 2012
Introduction
The Chemicals Regulation Directorate (CRD ) of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE ) is seeking views from authorisation holders and marketing companies [list of consultees] on the routine publication of the registration reports (RRs) for plant protection products. Although this consultation is of most relevance to this group of stakeholders, we would welcome comments from anyone.
Background
Regulatory Update 45/2007 provided background to the preparation of RRs and announced the move to routinely release the reports to the applicants once the evaluation was completed. Prior to that, RRs were not provided to applicants and were only provided to other Member States on request.
Recently, CRD has received an increasing number of requests for the provision of RRs from third parties citing the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). These requests, which fall to be considered under the EIR, usually result in the release of suitably redacted documents to the third parties concerned. A significant amount of resource is involved in dealing with these requests.
We are also aware that other Member States are now making their RRs routinely publicly available via their websites, and in the interest of consistency (with other authorities) and efficiency we now also intend to make our RRs publicly available via the CRD website. Such pro-active disclosure of information is fostered by the EIR itself (regulation 4) and is something that the Information Commissioner urges public authorities to routinely undertake.
The information we propose to disclose under these new arrangements will not differ in any way from that which would be disclosed by CRD in response to a request for that information handled under the EIR.
Responses
Please send your responses to: ConsultationCoordinator@hse.gsi.gov.uk
Please tell us in your reply whether you are commenting as an individual or representing the views of an organisation. If you are replying on behalf of an organisation, please make it clear who the organisation represents and, if necessary, how the views of the members were assembled.
Responses should be received by 8th June 2012.
Consultation Criteria
This consultation complies with the Government’s guidance on informal consultation.
When this consultation ends, CRD will make copies of the responses available on request. This is because members of the public may ask for a copy of the responses under the statutory access to information legislation.
If you do not want your response – including your name, contact details and any other personal information – to be publicly available, please say so clearly in your response to the consultation. Please note, if your computer automatically includes a confidentiality disclaimer, that won’t count as a confidentiality request.
Please explain why you need to keep your details confidential. We will take your reasons into account if someone asks for this information but, because of the presumption in favour of disclosure in the EIR we cannot guarantee that we will always be able to withhold it.
We will summarise all responses and place this summary on our website at: Consultations Index . This summary will include a list of names of organisations that responded, but not people’s personal names, addresses or other contact details.
If you have any comments or complaints about the consultation process, please address them to the Consultation Coordinator, Chemicals Regulation Directorate, Health and Safety Executive, Mallard House, Kings Pool, 3 Peasholme Green, YORK YO1 7PX, or by email to: ConsultationCoordinator@hse.gsi.gov.uk.
