The Freedom of Information Act gives you the right to
access information held by us, regardless of how it is held and how
old it is and you do not have to provide us with a reason for doing
so.
Before you make a
request
Before submitting a request, you should view our
publication
scheme to check if the information is already published
online or available for inspection at our offices.
Making a request
Complete our freedom of
information eForm to submit a request including: titles of
documents; specific reference numbers; dates; identifying marks;
precise spellings of words or phrases; anything else you think will
help. We also need your name and an address for correspondence, you
can just give an email address but a full postal address and
telephone number will help us if we need to discuss your request or
post information to you. We will acknowledge your request and
provide a response within 20 working days.
Charges for requests
Most requests will be handled for free but the Freedom of
Information Act allows us to charge for: photocopying, printing or
reproducing documents; posting or sending the information to you
another way; providing information in a format you specify - we can
refuse to do this if it is not reasonably practical to do so. We
will issue a fees notice outlining the cost if we need to charge
you, and discuss all charges with you to keep them to a
minimum.
An hourly rate of £25 is set by the act which obliges us to
spend up to 18 hours on these activities before the appropriate
limit of £450 is exceeded, in calculating this we will consider the
time take to: find out if we hold the information requested;
locating information or documents; retrieving information or
documents; extracting, editing and blanking out exempt information
from documents. If we think the appropriate limit may be exceeded
by your request we will contact you to discuss the options.
Information we hold about
you
You can access personal information we hold about you under the
Data Protection Act and you may also have the right to request
information we hold on your dependents. You do not have an
automatic right to the personal information of your children but
where children are of insufficient age and maturity to understand
what it means to exercise their rights, parents and carers can make
requests on their behalf. Judgement on this will be made on a case
by case basis. To make a request for personal information download
and complete our
subject access request form (pdf, Jun 11,
516KB) and return it to our
corporate
information management team. We charge £10 per request,
in line with Data Protection regulations. For more information
about the Data Protection Act 1998 visit the
legislation.gov.uk website.
Refusals
In some cases under the Freedom of Information Act we may not be
able to confirm or deny if we hold certain information. We can
refuse certain requests if costs exceed the appropriate limit of
£450 as defined by the Freedom of Information Act or the
information is:
- exempt from disclosure through one of the eight absolute
exemptions
- from disclosure through one of the fifteen qualified exemptions
where we have to consider public interest before publishing
information
- accessible by other means, for example published online
- prejudicial to effective conduct of public affairs
- personal data
- provided in confidence
- prohibited from being disclosed, for example by law or court
order
- requested multiple times by the same person
- requested as part of a campaign aimed at bypassing the
appropriate cost limit
We can also refuse if you harass our officers or make requests
that are not genuine attempts to obtain information but aimed at
disrupting our work. If we refuse any part of your request we will
let you know what exemptions apply to the information you have
requested and how we have come to our decision. You will also be
told how to appeal against our decision. For more information visit
the Information Commissioner’s
Office website.
Complaints and
appeals
If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your Freedom of
Information request you have the right to complain. We will provide
reasonable assistance to prepare a complaint such as helping you to
write it down or locate the original request and will acknowledge
your complaint within five working days of receipt, respond within
20 working days and inform you of our progress.
- step 1
contact our
corporate
information manager and include: the Freedom of Information
request reference we sent you; the date of the request and to whom
it was made - this is important if you don't know the request
reference; your contact details.
- step 2
if you’re unhappy with our response you can complain to our chief
executive officer through our
formal complaints procedure – you must have contacted our
corporate information manager to resolve your complaint first
- step 3
if you’re unhappy with our formal response, you can ask the
Information Commissioner to investigate your complaint, for more
information visit the Information
Commissioner’s website
Data protection
We are obliged to comply with and support the objectives of the
Data Protection Act 1998. We will:
- continue to strengthen our procedures for maintaining the
confidentiality of all personal information we hold
- require all of our employees to comply fully with this policy
and data protection principles
- hold the minimum personal information necessary to enable us to
perform our functions which is erased once the need to hold it has
passed
- make every effort to ensure this information is accurate,
up-to-date and that any inaccuracies are corrected without
unnecessary delay
- obtain all personal data in accordance with the Fair Processing
Code and lawfully process it in accordance with the Conditions for
Processing
- design our systems and processes to comply with data protection
principles
- not publish personal data on our website without the explicit
consent of its subject
- take immediate action if we discover that our policies are not
being complied with
Any personal information will only be disclosed for notified
purposes to:
- our staff: where the information is vital to their
work
- the courts: under the direction of a court order
- our partners: strictly in accordance with agreed protocols
- others: as detailed in the notified register entry
For more information about our participation in the National
Fraud Initiative download our
level 2 fair processing notice (pdf).
For more information visit the
legislation.gov.uk,
Information Commissioner's Office and
Department of Constitutional
Affairs websites.
