What is a freedom of information request?

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 placed an obligation upon certain public sector organisations to release all information they hold unless it meets certain criteria for exemption. You can find guidance on the provisions of the Act and the type of requests that fall under it in the downloads section on the right.

Where you are being asked to provide information which will take you a long time to find, or is not routinely issued, this should be treated as a formal Freedom of Information request and logged as such. We are obliged by law to respond within 20 working days.

Some staff may receive regular requests for information from the public, many of which are actually matters of the public record and are easily accessible. Such requests can be responded to directly rather than formally logging them. These should also be responded to within the 20 working day deadline.

What do I do if I don’t think that the information should be made available to the public?

If you think that that the information requested may fall into one of the exemption categories, please consult with Bambos Charalambous in Legal Services, who will confirm whether or nor we are obliged to provide the information. In cases where information does fall under exemption categories, a letter explaining this should be sent to the person requesting the information, within our corporate timescales.

Can I charge for providing information?

In most cases the Council does not charge for replying to FOI requests when providing the required information will involve under 18 hours of Officer time. If you feel that responding fully to a request will involve over 18 hours of work, please consult with Bambos as to the suitable costs to charge. We should then inform the customer of the charge that would be likely apply for our responding in full; giving them the choice of narrowing down their request to fall within the 18 hour limit, or to agree to the projected costs.

For any request, the Council can charge for the costs of copying documents that have been requested; the choice as to whether to do so is down to Officers’ discretion.

If you are regularly providing information that could be made available to the public, consideration could be given to publishing the requested information on the Council’s website and/or other sources.

What if I don’t have or can’t find the information which is being requested?

If the information did once but does not now exist then the requester must be notified of this fact and should be assisted where possible in trying to obtain this information from other sources.

What do I do if I know that I will be able to get the information, but not within the 20 days deadline?

If it will take longer to retrieve the information requested than 20 working days we should inform the customer of the delay and that date that that they should expect the response. If the request is vague the Council may ask the requester for clarification. In terms of response times, the clock stops between our request being made and us receiving the clarification.

For further information, or to log any FOI requests, please contact Aysha Mukhtar on 020 8356 356 4032, or email aysha.mukhtar@hackney.gov.uk

For advice on releasing information to the public, please contact Bambos Charalambous on 020 8356 4037, or email bambos.charalambous@hackney.gov.uk

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Page updated: 11 Aug 2008