Dear Mr Hosking

Thank you for your emailed reply of 23 January to Emily Oyama, asking for clarification as to why the Government has no plans to bring the Duchy of Cornwall within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is described in the Act as to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them. The Act provides a general right of access to information from over 100,000 public authorities. These are all either listed in Schedule 1 to the Act, or covered under sections 3 and 6 of the Act as “publicly-owned companies” that are wholly owned by a public authority.

The use of the two mechanisms (Orders under section 4 or section 5) for making offices and organisations subject to the Act is limited, therefore, to public bodies / officials and those that exercise public functions respectively. Since the Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate, it would be inappropriate to include it by either of these routes and the Government has no plans to change its status. Neither the Royal Household nor members of the Royal Family are subject to the Act; indeed the Act contains an exemption for communications between public authorities and Her Majesty, other members of the Royal Family or the Royal Household.

As you may appreciate, many organisations in which the public has an interest are suggested as candidates for designation as public authorities under the Freedom of Information Act. You may be interested to look at a consultation paper issued by this Department in October 2007, on the use of the power under section 5 of the Act to designate organisations that appear to the Secretary of State to exercise functions of a public nature, or that provide public authority services under contract. The scope of `functions of a public nature' was among the issues considered in the consultation paper, which may still be viewed on the Ministry of Justice website, at http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/cp2707.pdf. The public consultation concluded on 1st February 2008 and the Government is continuing to assess the issue. Its response will be published before the summer.

Yours sincerely

J M Hawkes (Ms)

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