- Date released: 2 September 2026
- Request number: FOI202608035
- Release of information under: FOIA
Information requested
I am writing to seek advice and assistance under section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 before submitting a formal request.
I intend to submit a request for copies of final response letters issued in respect of information requests received by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), together with copies of any final internal review decision letters issued in relation to those requests. Before doing so, I wish to ensure that my request is framed appropriately and, where possible, falls within the appropriate cost limit.
To assist me in formulating my request, I would be grateful if you could advise, separately for each of the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years:
- The total number of requests received under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
- The total number of requests received under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
If the volume of requests received during those financial years is such that a request for all final response letters and final internal review decision letters would be likely to exceed the appropriate cost limit under section 12, I would be grateful if, in accordance with your duty to provide advice and assistance under section 16, you could advise how those records are organised or categorised.
In particular, if the records are maintained within a case management system, I would be grateful if you could identify the recorded fields or metadata by which cases can be searched or filtered (for example, subject matter, regulatory function, business area, directorate, programme, inspectorate, requester type, legislation, outcome, keywords, date received, date closed, responsible team, or any other recorded classification). I do not require copies of the metadata itself at this stage; I seek only to understand how the records are organised so that I may frame a request likely to fall within the appropriate cost limit.
I would also be grateful if you could advise:
- whether final response letters and any information released with them are ordinarily stored together within the same case record;
- whether final internal review decision letters are linked to the original request within the same case record;
- whether there are particular categories or subsets of cases that you consider could readily be retrieved within the appropriate cost limit; and
- whether your Freedom of Information Team manages Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations requests solely for the Office for Nuclear Regulation or also for any subsidiary organisations, business units, programmes, or other organisational functions whose requests are recorded within the same case management system.
If the latter information is available, I would be grateful if you could provide a list of those organisations or organisational functions. This will assist me in directing any future requests appropriately and, where necessary, narrowing the scope of any request to a particular business area.
If there is another way in which you consider the request could be framed so that it is more likely to fall within the appropriate cost limit while still enabling me to obtain the information sought, I would be grateful for your advice.
Our response
Whilst your correspondence states that it is a request for advice and assistance under https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-16-advice-and-assistance/s.16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), rather than a formal information request, parts of your email seek recorded information held by ONR, including statistics relating to FOIA and EIR requests and information regarding how information request records are maintained.
We have therefore treated those elements as requests for information under the FOIA and have provided a response accordingly. We have also considered the remainder of your correspondence as a request for advice and assistance to help you formulate any future information request. Please see below for a response to each of your questions in turn.
Copies of final responses issued
With regards to your intention to submit a request for copies of final response letters issued, and as per https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-21-information-accessible-to-the-applicant-by-other-means/s.21 of the FOIA, information accessible to the applicant by other means, I can confirm that all copies of our responses issued for information requests for the last five years can be found on the https://www.onr.org.uk/publications/publication-search?type=foiReleasePublicationReleases of Information page of our website. There are over 400 responses that are currently on our website and are held in line with our record retention policy. This covers responses for both FOIA and Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) requests.
We do not routinely publish our internal review responses unless there is a change to the outcome of the request, which would result in an update to the original response published on our website. Where internal reviews have been conducted, the review correspondence is retained with the records relating to the original request.
Total number of requests received
With regards to your request for the total number of requests received under the FOIA and EIR for 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years, and as per https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-21-information-accessible-to-the-applicant-by-other-means/s.21 of the FOIA, this information is publicly available via the Transparency section of our https://www.onr.org.uk/publications/corporate-publications/annual-report-and-accountsAnnual Reports and Accounts. Information on the number and outcome of internal review requests is also available in the same section.
- https://www.onr.org.uk/media/kfcpdabt/onr-ara-2025-26-114.pdfAnnual Report and Accounts 2025/26 – page 75
- https://www.onr.org.uk/media/ktupbcwm/onr-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-2025.pdfAnnual Report and Accounts 2024/25 – page 67
Case management system
I can advise that ONR does not utilise a dedicated FOIA/EIR case management system. Information requests are managed via email using Microsoft Outlook and an accompanying tracking spreadsheet via Microsoft Excel.
The tracking spreadsheet is set up for each financial year and contains information used for the administration and monitoring of information requests. The fields currently recorded include:
- Request reference number
- Date received
- Date commissioned
- Deadline for team allocation
- 15 day internal deadline date
- Statutory 20 day deadline date
- Requester's surname
- Title of request
- Lead Directorate
- Subject/Theme
- Site
- Technical Lead
- Decision Maker
- Public correspondence lead
- Policy lead
- Communications lead
- Comments
- Exemptions/Exceptions
- Late
- CM9 reference
Requests may therefore be searched or filtered internally using information recorded within these fields. Although it is important to note that if this information was requested, some of it would be withheld under s.40(1) and s.40(2) – personal information (e.g. items 7 and 12–16).
In addition, and as referenced above, you can access five years of published responses to FOIA and EIR requests externally via our Publication search. There is a free text field search functionality available on the website, and over 400 of these responses can be searched using any search term of your choice. In addition, there is a filter where you can refine your search via over 120 different search terms:
- Article types
- corporate publications (11 sub heading) e.g. annual reports and accounts, gender pay report, information exchange agreements, strategy etc.
- regulatory reports (16 sub headings) e.g. Chief Nuclear Inspector annual report, inspection records, project assessment reports, research etc.
- regulatory guidance (12 sub headings) e.g. compliance inspections, investigations and enforcement, technical assessment guides etc.
- Article tags (25 sub headings) e.g. climate change, cyber security, new reactors, safeguards, security, transport etc.
- Sites (41 sub headings) e.g. AWE, Sellafield, Heysham, Hunterston, etc.
- Licensees (17 sub headings) e.g. EDF, Rolls Royce, Springfields, Urenco etc.
- Year (5 sub headings) – limited to the last 5 years for FOI/EIR responses.
If you select the Publication search webpage a detailed breakdown of the sub headings can be found in the filter section on the righthand side of the webpage to refining your search.
Final response letters and information released case record
Correspondence relating to a request, including the final response and any information released alongside it, is retained within the same Microsoft Outlook folder associated with the request reference number.
Request case records within Microsoft Outlook are retained within the Public Correspondence team's working filing structure for one year, although final responses that are published remain available through the ONR website publication scheme for five years. The Microsoft Excel tracking spreadsheet for each financial year is retained for five years.
Internal review decision case records
Where an internal review is undertaken, the internal review correspondence would be retained with the records associated with the original request for one year.
Categories or subsets of cases
By way of advice and assistance, requests can be filtered using the information recorded in the fields listed above. A future request narrowed by one or more of these criteria with a limited timeframe is likely to be easier to identify and retrieve than a request covering all FOIA and EIR case files.
Whether ONR's FOI Team manages requests solely for ONR
The Public Correspondence Team manages all FOI/EIR requests received solely for ONR.
Conclusion
We hope the above has been helpful in answering your request for information and with providing you with further information to help with tailoring any future request. However, if you have any further queries regarding this, please contact us via contact@onr.gov.ukcontact@onr.gov.uk quoting the reference number: FOI202608035.
More information on how to submit an information request to ONR can be found at the following webpage: https://www.onr.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/freedom-of-information-foiHow to submit a request for information to ONR.
Exemptions applied
s.16, s.21
Public Interest Test (PIT)
N/A