9.1 Registers of IPC information will be available for inspection free of charge at the office of both enforcing authorities and at local authority offices and copies of entries may be obtained on payment of a reasonable charge. The registers at river purification authorities and local authority offices, will hold information relating to IPC processes within their respective areas. In addition, an index to the entire register, and the entire register will be available at HMIP1 Headquarters in Edinburgh.
9.2 Sections 20-22 of the Act deal with registers of information, and the relationship to them of commercially confidential and national security information. Regulation 15 of the Environmental Protection (Applications, Appeals and Registers) Regulations 1991 provides more detail on the information that will be contained on the register:
a. all particulars of any application for an authorisation made to the enforcing authority;
b. all particulars of any notice to an applicant and of additional information furnished in response under paragraph 1(3) of Schedule 1 to the Act;
c. all particulars of any representations made by the statutory consultees listed in paragraph 6.6 above;
d. all particulars of any authorisation granted by the authority;
e. all particulars of any variation, enforcement or prohibition notice issued by the enforce authority;
f. all particulars of any notice withdrawing a prohibition notice;
g. all particulars of any notification of the enforcing authority by the holder of an authorisation in response to a requirement of a variation notice under section 10(4) of the Act;
h. all particulars of any application for the variation of the conditions of an authorisation under section 11 (4) (b) of the Act;
i. all particulars of any revocation notice;
j. all particulars of any notice of appeal, accompanied by a statement of the grounds of appeal, a copy of relevant correspondence between the appellant and the enforcing authority and a copy of the decision or notice which is the subject matter of appeal, any written notification by the Secretary of State relating to such an appeal and any report by a person appointed under section 15 accompanying any such written notification;
k. details of any conviction for any offence under section 23(1) of the Act, including the name of the offender, the date of conviction, the penalty imposed and the name of the Court; (see also para 9.11 below).
l. all particulars of any monitoring information relating to a prescribed process obtained by the authority as a result of its own monitoring or furnished to the authority in writing by virtue of a condition of the authorisation or section 19(2) of the Act. (This does not include monitoring information held on the site of the prescribed process but not required to be sent in writing to the enforcing authority.)
m. a statement by the enforcing authority, where monitoring information is omitted from the register on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, indicating whether or not there has been compliance with any relevant condition of the authorisation;
n. all particulars of any report published by the enforcing authority relating to an assessment of the environmental consequences of the carrying on of a prescribed process in the locality of premises where the process is carried on; and '
o. a copy of any direction given to the enforcing authority by the Secretary of State under Part 1 of the Act, other than a direction under section 21(2).
9.3 In addition, section 20(5) of the Act specifies that where information is excluded from a register of grounds of commercial confidentiality, the register shall contain a statement to that effect.
9.4 Monitoring information which is more than four years old or information which has been superseded for more than four years may, however, be removed from the register by the enforcing authority.
9.5 Information should be placed on the register as soon as possible. This is particularly important where the information is relevant to an application etc on which the public are being given the opportunity to comment.
Exclusions on Grounds of Commercial Confident
9.6 Section 22 of the Act allows for information to be withheld from the public register for reasons of commercial confidentiality. It is suggested that the following principles should generally apply when considering whether information justifies being classified S commere y confidential.
9.7 The guiding principle is that information should be freely available to the public about applications for authorisation, the requirements for controlling releases from prescribed processes, the performance of operators in meeting such requirements, formal notices issued to operators, appeals made to the Secretary of State, etc. The availability of this information will aid confidence in the system and facilitate public participation, which is an important feature of IPC. It will enable the public to ascertain that adequate pollution control measures are in force. It will also expose any failure to comply with the terms of an authorisation and indicate the consequential action taken.
9.8 Any operator who seeks to have information kept from the public register for reasons of commercial confidentiality should demonstrate that disclosure of the information would negate or significantly diminish a commercial advantage. This might, for instance, relate to preserving the secret of a new process technology, or of a particular raw material or catalyst, or of the capacity of the process, or some other specific feature which if made public might seriously affect a legitimate commercial advantage.
9.9 Such cases are most likely to arise in relation to the information contained in applications for authorisation or for variations which involve a substantial change, where the enforcing authority will need detailed information about the process. The onus is on the applicant to provide a clear justification for each item he wishes to be kept from the register. It will not be sufficient to say, for example, that the ray; material to be used in the process is a trade secret and that consequently no details of the process must be made publicly available. The amount of information excluded from the register should be kept to the minimum necessary to safeguard the applicant's commercial advantage .
9. 10 It will not normally be appropriate to withhold information from the register in response to a general c that disclosure might damage the reputation of the operator and hence his commercial competitiveness. The enforcing authority will also take into account whether the information at issue could be obtained or inferred from other publicly accessible sources.
PUBLIC REGISTERS AND SPENT CONVICTIONS
9.11 Unauthorised disclosure of spent convictions is a criminal offence and therefore it is very important that the details of any convictions are removed from the public registers at the appropriate times. This applies equally to relevant information on registers maintained by the enforcing authority, the consulted authority and by local authorities.