Network Rail and FOI

[43106]

Here's a good one. There appears to be a web-site (http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/) that specialises in making requests to public bodies using FOI (Freedom of Information). I pondered using them to try and get some Working Timetable information out of Network Rail. But, according to the site, and I quote...

"Neither FOI nor EIR law apply to Network Rail, so you cannot make a request from them. The Information Tribunal overturned the ICO decision which ruled they were subject to EIR."

Could anyone shed any light on this? What is EIR? European Information Regulator is my guess. And who is "The Information Tribunal"? Whose interests are they suppposedly acting for? Are they acting in opposition to the ICO, another apparent quango?

 

[Mojo]

EIR are the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and they provide members of the public access to information on environmental matters held by public bodies, in a similar manner to the more general range of information available under Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000, although EIR is broader than the FOI Act.

The FOI Act has set out a list of who is bound by the FOI Act, whereas public bodies are bound by EIR, meaning the Information Commissioner has to decide what counts as a public body. The debate is whether Network Rail is a "public body" or not, and originally the Information Commissioner decided that it was, but the Orwellian-sounding Information Tribunal decided that it wasn't.