Dear all, as I understand it....
In general, the spirit of FOI is to provide the public with an opportunity
to find out what publicly funded bodies do, and how they do it. The act
aims to make these bodies more accountable. The act is not designed to get
in the way of the things that we currently do on a daily basis.
The message from our legal dept. is as follows:
Our HER is included in our local authority Publication Scheme, this
means the authority has a legal obligation to make the information
available during the times advertised in the Publication Scheme. The
publication scheme states that charges may be made for commercial
enquiries. Inclusion in the Scheme means that the HER information is
not subject to FOI enquiries as our resource is "reasonably accessible".
Charging for commercial searches: We offer a search service at our own
discretion. There is no statutory requirement to provide this service,
therefore we can charge a reasonable fee and this right is not affected
by FOI.
However, we are affected by FOI in other areas of our work. We may be
questioned on enquiries we have responded to or decisions we have taken
in the past ie. what we said, when and why. The implication is that we
need to have filed paperwork efficiently as we have only 20 working days
to complete a request (a holding letter does not stop the clock!).
The restrictions on charging are not final yet. However, we will be
able to charge for a percentage of the total cost (staff time taken to
find information) and a certain amount for photocopying etc. The
current example is 10% staff time and 100% of copying costs up to a
maximum of £600.00. This is a complicated area and I am waiting for our
legal people to explain this to me again. I believe that at a certain
point (can't remember which point) we explain the charges to the
enquirer, if they say to proceed we wait for the money to arrive before
proceeding, if they refuse we are not obliged to complete the request
under FOI.
A few things to think about, or go and find out about :
Your LA Publication Scheme
Your LA asset register
20 days to respond to an FOI enquiry (the enquiry does not have to say
FOI, but it does have to be in writing)
The person who receives the request is responsible for ensuring the
request is fulfilled, even if the information requested is held a
colleague in another department!
I will add to this email once I have had clarification from our legal rep.
Emma Jones
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