Missing Paper Trail: MA Escalates Blanket Bog Dispute to the ICO

Andrew Gilruth
Jul 2
3 min read

Quick summary

The MA asked Natural England to disclose the audit trail behind its blanket bog document.
Natural England confirmed relevant QA records exist but has refused to disclose key parts.
The MA has asked the ICO to review whether that refusal was justified.
Members are asked to report where the document is being cited or relied upon.

Why this matters

Natural England has published a number of “Definition of Favourable Conservation Status” documents, including one for blanket bog. These documents matter because they can influence how public bodies think about restoration, protected sites, peatland management and future regulatory decisions.

This is the next stage in an issue we first reported in May, when we explained that the MA had asked Natural England to disclose the audit trail behind the blanket bog FCS document.

What the MA asked for

The Moorland Association submitted a Freedom of Information request asking Natural England for a limited set of records showing the quality-assurance, technical-review and governance process behind the blanket bog document, RP2967: Definition of Favourable Conservation Status for Blanket bog.

The request was narrow: not all drafts, emails or underlying datasets, but the audit trail — publication approval, QA/peer-review records, governance sign-off and version history.

What Natural England has confirmed

Natural England’s response confirmed that relevant records exist. These include two completed QA Review Forms, specialist comments on the draft document, publication workflow records, and records relating to final amendments before publication.

Natural England has, however, declined to disclose key parts of that material, relying on EIR exceptions for internal communications and unfinished material.

Why this raises questions

There are three points we think members should be aware of.

1) Natural England has confirmed that key quality-assurance and specialist-review records exist, but has declined to disclose them.

2) Natural England is relying partly on an exception for unfinished material, even though the blanket bog FCS document has now been published.

3) The document appears to have had a long development history, including technical sign-off in 2017, further TSG Chair sign-off in 2022, Director for Evidence sign-off in 2023, later drafts in 2024 and 2025, and final wording amendments shortly before publication in March 2025. Natural England has said it holds a 2017 TSG note and a 2022 email indicating that previous comments had been addressed, but that it does not hold further TSG responses, records showing how those comments were addressed, or a record confirming that revised favourable values did not require renewed TSG discussion or formal re-approval.

We are not drawing conclusions from that. However, where a document may influence land-management expectations and regulatory decisions, we believe the audit trail should be clear and open to scrutiny.

Why we have gone to the ICO

The MA has now asked the Information Commissioner’s Office to review whether that refusal is justified. The ICO is the independent regulator responsible for deciding whether public bodies have handled information requests correctly.

A note on transparency, not blame

The concern here is not individual Natural England staff, but transparency and confidence in the evidence base. Where documents of this kind may influence land-management expectations, SSSI discussions, peatland restoration plans or regulatory decisions, members are entitled to understand whether the process behind them was robust, properly reviewed and adequately recorded.

What we are asking members to send us

We are therefore asking members to let us know if they have seen the blanket bog FCS document, or any other FCS document, being cited or relied upon in:

SSSI consent or condition discussions
peatland restoration plans
burning or cutting discussions
agri-environment or nature-recovery agreements
management plans, targets or monitoring requirements
correspondence with Natural England or other public bodies

Please send any examples to agilruth@moorlandassociation.org. We will treat material sensitively and will not publish member-specific information without consent.

Documents

For transparency, we are publishing the relevant correspondence below. These documents show the limited information request submitted by the MA, Natural England’s response, the MA’s request for internal review, and Natural England’s internal review response. Personal information has been redacted where appropriate.