Department for Environment, Food and Rural Areas: Reviews
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of publishing her Department's report, tatus of Defra’s critical systems to 2030 and beyond.
Answered by Stephen Morgan
Defra has considered the potential merits of publishing material relating to the “Status of Defra’s critical systems to 2030 and beyond”. This work was an early-stage internal foresight exercise to support official-level discussion on long-term trends across Defra’s areas of responsibility. It was intended as a scoping input to further analysis and workshops, and was not developed as a standalone, publishable report. The programme was not completed, the material has not passed quality assurance, and it does not represent Government policy.
In considering release under the Environmental Information Regulations, Defra has applied the exceptions at Regulations 12(4)(d) (unfinished documents) and 12(4)(e) (internal communications). While Defra recognises the public interest in transparency, this is outweighed by the public interest in protecting space for the development of policy and in avoiding the risk of releasing incomplete material that would be misleading if taken out of context. On balance, the public interest favours withholding the information.
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