Freedom of Information FAQs
What is Freedom of Information (FOI)?
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) gives people a
general right of access to information held by public
authorities.
The act was introduced to help bring about a
culture of openness within the public sector. Information held by
public authorities should be available and accessible to
everyone.
This should give the public a better understanding of how
public authorities carry out their duties, why they make the
decisions they do and how they spend public money.
Public authorities have two main duties under
the Act:
1. Each public authority must adopt and
maintain a publication scheme setting out:
- Details of information it will routinely make
available
- How the information can be obtained
- Whether there is any charge for it
See our publication
scheme for more information on this.
2. From 1 January 2005, every public authority
must comply with requests for the information that it holds unless
there is an exemption from disclosure. Public authorities normally
have a maximum of 20 working days to respond to the request,
however there are circumstances when this time limit can be
extended.
What can you ask for?
You can ask for any information held by us in
any form. This includes information held in paper, electronic and
any other formats.
We then have a duty to supply it unless one or
more of a number of statutory exemption applies – for example
if
- It is a matter covered by data protection
legislation
- It is available under our publication
scheme
- It might be considered prejudicial to the
effective conduct of public affairs
Must you make a FOI application to get information from public
bodies?
No. Public bodies, including the council, make
information available to the public through information leaflets,
publications and responses to enquiries. This will continue.
FOI provides an additional source by
facilitating access to information not routinely available.
How do you apply?
Requests must be made in writing by letter,
fax or email. You can also use our
online FOI request form. A form for this purpose is also
available from the our idea stores, libraries and one stop
shops.
You should give as much detail as possible to
help us identify the information you are seeking, though we will be
happy to assist you with this. If we need more detail from you to
identify the information, we will contact you.
Where to send your requests
The Information Governance Team
Chief Executive’s Directorate
Town Hall
Mulberry Place
5 Clove Crescent
London E14 2BG
Tel: 020 7364 4354
Fax: 020 7364 4804
Email to foi@towerhamlets.gov.uk
Will there be a charge?
If the council can provide the information you
have requested within 18 hours of staff time there will be no
charge for staff time. 18 hours is the equivalent to a total
cost of £450 using the Government’s hourly rate of £25 per hour as
set out in the regulations.
The only other charge that might be taken into
account in the cost calculation is for the cost of photocopying and
postage (disbursements) as explained below.
The 18 hours can include time to:
- Identifying that the council holds the
information
- Retrieving the information
- Extracting the information including reading,
summarising or editing the information
If we believe it will take longer
than 18 hours or cost more than £450 to comply with the request,
then the council will calculate the estimated time and other
disbursements such as:
- Putting the information into your required
format
- Photocopying and printing
- Postage and other forms of communication
- Translation when this has to be done
specially
To ensure that access to information is
equally available to all, we have decided that where a
request costs more than £450 to process, we will not process
it. We will then ask you to reduce the scope of the request to
bring down the hours/ cost of the request, and will try to identify
how this can be done. If you refuse to change the scope of the
request, we will not process the request.
Types of request
Complex requests
Some requests may be so complex, perhaps
involving searching the archives for historic data, that the cost
of staff time involved in identifying whether the information is
held alone amounts to more than £450. In these
circumstances we are under no obligation to comply with
the request and will inform you of this.
Vexatious requests
We are not obliged to respond to
vexatious requests. A request that is designed to
cause inconvenience, harassment or expense can be considered
vexatious, and we are entitled to consider the effect as
well as the intention of the request. The Information
Commissioner’s Office has issued advice to say that "if a
reasonable person would conclude that the main effect of the
request would be disproportionate inconvenience or expense, then it
will be appropriate to treat the request as being vexatious".
Repeated requests
Some requests can be combined under the terms
of the Act to estimate the total cost of compliance. This
applies when two or more requests about similar information
are made by one person or different people who seem to be working
together or in pursuance of a campaign. The requests must also be
received within a period of 60 working days of each other.
Other sources of information
The fees regulations and full guidance are
available on the Ministry of Justice website.
Our FOI manager can be contacted on
foi@towerhamlets.gov.uk.
How will we respond?
We can respond by post, email or arranged
personal collection, depending on what you prefer. We
will provide you with the information requested within 20 days
where we can, or tell you why we are unable to do so. If for any
reason there is likely to be a delay, we will let you
know.
What you can do if you are unhappy about a decision on your
request?
Initially, you should contact our Freedom of
Information manager on foi@towerhamlets.gov.uk. If
the officer is unable to help, then you should complain
through our complaints procedure:
Corporate Complaints
Chief Executive’s Directorate
Town Hall
Mulberry Place
5 Clove Crescent
London E14 2BG
Tel: 020 7364 4161
Email: complaints@towerhamlets.gov.uk
If you are unhappy with the council’s
response, you can contact the Information Commissioner and ask him
to investigate:
Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Tel: 016 2554 5700
Email: data@dataprotection.gov.uk
Visit http://www.ico.gov.uk/
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