Freedom of Information Act 2000 FOIA

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Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)

• School Admin Officer Conference
• June 2005

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Session Format

• Councils approach to the Act
• Policy and process
• How it fits with other legislation
• Experience so far
• Next Steps

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Background to Implementation

• Act received royal assent on 30 November 2000
• Affects around 110,000 public authorities in
  England and Wales
• Central local government
• Police armed forces
• Health sector
• Educational sector

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Background to Implementation

• Two Phases of Implementation
• Publications Scheme - 2003
• Full access 1st January 2005
• Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA)
• Codes of practice
• Information Commissioner (IC)
• Enforcement

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Other Access to Information Law

• Local Government Act 1972 e.g. Committee Papers
• Local Government Act 2000 e.g. Key decisions
• Audit Commission Act 1998 e.g. Inspection of
  Accounts
• Data Protection Act 1998 Personal Data
• Environmental Information Regulations 1992

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Positive approach enabled by FOIA

• Improved Customer Service
• Increased openness and transparency of decision
  making
• Increased information available readily to
  customers
• Use technology to support staff to meet these
  objectives
• Good to great
• Learning organisation

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Receiving a request

• Do we hold the Information?
• Duty to advise and assist with request
• Access to information in 2 ways
• Via publications scheme
• Written request for access to information
• Copy of information
• Inspect the information
• Summary of information
• 20 working days to respond
• Retrospective

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Responding to Requests

• Frontline staff may be asked for FOIA process
• No change to process for routine requests
  responding to letters etc
• Identify who holds information if you do not
• Request may cover information from multiple areas
  of council
• Project team will co-ordinate multiple responses

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Tracking Requests

• No need to log routine requests responding to
  letters etc
• Corporate Complaints System used for logging
• Log request where charges are being set
• Negative responses are be logged and copies of
  correspondence sent to information team
• Advice available from legal or information team

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Providing partial requests

• Some information may not be released e.g.
  personal information within a document
• Seek advice on how best to do this
• Log request with details of what has been omitted
  and reasons for doing this

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Reasons for Negative response

• Information not held by council
• Cost
• Vexatious
• Exemptions
• Absolute
• Subjective

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Who holds the information

• Duty to advise and assist can identify this
• Should the council hold this information?
• If we hold information from another public body,
  then we must disclose this
• Good customer service is to pass this information
  onto the appropriate organisation
• Must be done promptly as clock continues ticking
  and we retain ownership of request

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Charges

• Requestor must be advised in writing and clock
  stops until fee is paid
• If fee is not paid within 3 months, request is
  closed
• For local authorities, information is provided
  free of charge if costs are less than 450
  (approximately 2.5 days work)
• If costs are higher, charges can be reclaimed or
  request refused
• Charges for photocopying etc can be reclaimed
  additionally

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Vexatious Requests

• Definition of Vexatious
• Repeat requests by individual or group for same
  information
• Unreasonable amounts of information requested
• Requests intended to disrupt authoritys work
• Central monitoring and response will help to
  manage these types of requests
• Take legal advice

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Exemptions

• Absolute exemption does not mean do not disclose
• It means do not disclose under the FOIA
• Disclosure may be required under other
  legislation such as Data Protection or Local
  Government Act
• Other exemptions are subject to a public
  interest test
• Must disclose unless public interest in
  withholding outweighs public interest in
  disclosure
• Take legal advice

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Examples of Exemptions

• Information for future publication
• Investigation proceedings by authority
• Law enforcement
• Health safety
• Legal professional privilege
• Prejudice commercial interests
• Environmental Information
• Personal information including 3rd party

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Applying the public interest test

• Legal can advise on how to apply
• public interest rather than interesting to the
  public
• Document both sides of argument
• Disclose if balance is equal
• Information Commissioner can be consulted if
  necessary

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Appeal Process

• Internal review within directorate
• Right to appeal to Information Commissioner at
  next stage
• Complaints about process will be dealt with by
  corporate complaints procedure

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Preparation for January

• Leaflet for all staff with November payroll
• Management briefings (November)
• Attendance at directorate management teams
• Visits to frontline teams
• Limited external publicity
• Identification of key staff in directorates
• Information audit
• Putting processes procedures in place

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Learning from experience

• Approx 180 requests since January
• Most regeneration and corporate information
• Many seek further information for on-going
  complaint
• Increase in requests for personal information
• Many requests from journalists
• Some requests to every council in Britain

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Future Plans

• Reviewing publications scheme and providing
  searchable option
• Using website/sharepoint portal server to share
  information better
• Appoint records manager to implement standards
  and advise on good practice
• Increase available information in range of
  formats
• Further training and advice sessions

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Information Management

• Standards for creation of new information from
  January 2005
• Why create a document?
• Better use of e-mail
• Structure documents to suit audience
• Making more information readily available via
  website

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Archiving Policy

• Retention Schedules
• Formats for the future
• Paper files
• Scanned files
• Live files
• Closed files
• Heritage files

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Contact details

• Lindsay Ould, Corporate Information Manager 020
  8314 6643
• E-mail freedom.information_at_lewisham.gov.uk