The Freedom of Information Act came into force at the beginning of 2005. It deals with access to official information, while parallel regulations deal with environmental information.
The Act provides individuals or organisations with the right to request information held by a public authority. They can do this by letter or email.
The public authority must tell the applicant whether it holds the information, and must normally supply it within 20 working days, in the format requested.
However, the public authority does not have to confirm or deny the existence of the information or provide it if an exemption applies, the request is vexatious or similar to a previous request, or if the cost of compliance exceeds an appropriate limit.
If exemption applies, but is qualified, this means that the public authority must decide whether the public interest in using the exemption outweighs the public interest in releasing the information.
If an applicant is unhappy with a refusal to disclose information, they can complain to the ICO, after first exhausting any internal review procedure. We will investigate the case and either uphold the authority's use of an exemption or decide that the information must be disclosed.
Information must also be published through the public authority's publication scheme. This must be approved by the ICO, and is a commitment by a public authority to make certain information available, and a guide on how to get it.
The Act is fully retrospective and applies to all information, not just information filed since the Act came into force.
We are also responsible for two other 'access to information' regimes:
For more information about the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please see our factsheet and ten top tips leaflet
Scotland has its own Scottish Environmental Information Regulations and the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. These are regulated by the Scottish Information Commissioner's Office.
Voluntary Application of the Freedom of Information Act
There are a number of organisations in the UK which may carry out work of a public nature that are not presently covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The ‘Act’).
Some of these organisations are awaiting formal inclusion under the provisions of the Act. Others do not meet the necessary criteria for inclusion but recognise that their functions maybe of a public nature and, as such, wish to be as transparent as possible.
A number of these organisations voluntarily operate within the provisions of the Act and respond to requests for information made to them in a similar way to those bodies that are formally covered by the Act.
Some of the organisations voluntarily create publication schemes, which explain the kinds of information they proactively publish. Such schemes cannot be formally approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and we do not have any powers to enforce them. Similarly, the ICO cannot investigate Freedom of Information complaints against organisations that are not formally covered by the Act.
The ICO welcomes the voluntary application of the Act, and we encourage its ongoing practice. In order to avoid confusion, we would respectfully ask organisations to make it clear that their adherence to the Act is voluntary.