The Lord Chancellor has elected of his own accord to use his powers to bring the whole of the Act into force by 1st January 2005 although he is not obliged to do so.  It remains to be seen if he manages it.  The Act involves a complicated phasing in of provisions and good luck to him if he can do it ahead of the time the statute allows in s.87(3)..
 
The implementaion reports are available at:
 
http://www.lcd.gov.uk/foi/foiact.htm 
 
Laurence


>>> "Turner,Tim (Corporate Resources)" <[log in to unmask]> 04/09/03 14:29:49 >>>
This is definitely right - FOI comes completely into force on January 1
2005. Even given the five year time limit in the Act, that would still mean
it being implemented before the end of 2005, but the former Lord Chancellor
announced the timetable in November 2001, and January 1 2005 is the date for
full implementation.

Whatever the effect of FOI on the DP Act is, I think attempting to shrink
the definition of "relevant filing system" to exclude easily accessible
files, whatever labels they have on them is hardly within the spirit of the
Act. While I'm reluctant to accept that we should be searching every last
filing cabinet for scraps of paper with a name on them, I think if we can
easily find data stored in a paper file, we should supply it, rather than
thinking of excuses not to.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Whitaker [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] 
> Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 2:02 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask] 
> Subject:      [data-protection] Relevant (paper) filing systems - Coming
> into force date
>
> That advice is inconsistent with the information which I have understood
> from several other sources and which is reflected on the Lord Chancellor's
> Office website at: http://www.lcd.gov.uk/foi/imprep/annex_a.htm 
>
> The relevant part says:
>
> "As stated above, provisions relating to the individual right of access
> (which effectively means all provisions not already commenced or commenced
> in full) will come into force on 1 January 2005.
>
> The Freedom of Information Act will thus be fully implemented by January
> 2005, eleven months before the date set out in section 87(3) of the Act."
>
>
> So unless this is corrected, I am still planning for 31st December 2004.
>
> Regards
>
> Jim Whitaker
>
> ==============================================================
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 13:07:15 +0100, Helena Ashton <helena_ashton@BRISTOL-
> CITY.GOV.UK> wrote:
>
> >Advice from the ICOs office was that the amendment to the DPA contained
> in s69(2) of the FOI Act does not come into effect until January 2006. As
> far as I can see s69 is not mentioned in "commencement" s87, so as
> Laurence suggested I would assume that this will be included in a
> presentation to parliament but that the ICOs office have been advised in
> advance.
> >
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>        All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
>       available to the world wide web community at large at
>       http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html 
>       If you wish to leave this list please send the command
>        leave data-protection to [log in to unmask] 
>             All user commands can be found at : -
>         http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm 
>   (all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


**********************************************************************
WARNING!!
The information in this email is confidential and may be legally privileged.
It is intended solely for the addressee.  Unauthorised access to this email by anyone else is prohibited.
If you have received this email in error or are reading it without authorisation, any disclosure, copying,
distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited by
Derbyshire County Council and may be unlawful.

Senders and recipients of email should be aware that under the Data Protection act 1998 [and the
Freedom of Information Act 2000], the contents may have to be disclosed to a request.

**********************************************************************

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
       All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
      available to the world wide web community at large at
      http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html 
      If you wish to leave this list please send the command
       leave data-protection to [log in to unmask] 
            All user commands can be found at : -
        http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm 
  (all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
       All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
      available to the world wide web community at large at
      http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
      If you wish to leave this list please send the command
       leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
            All user commands can be found at : -
        http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
  (all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^