Freedom of Information policy
The council sees the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) as an opportunity to improve the ways in which we inform you and to improve the ways in which we manage the enormous amount of information we hold.
Information is one of the most, if not the most, important assets we have at the Council, and Freedom of Information provides a catalyst to make it more widely available and manage it more efficiently.
We want to conduct our business in an open and honest fashion. When we make a decision, it is important that you are informed how these decisions have been made.
- Availability - We will make information publicly available unless there are sound operational or public interest reasons for not doing so, or there are legal reasons preventing it (in particular reasons relating to the Data Protection Act and the privacy of individuals).
- Confidentiality - We will not classify documents as confidential without clear justification for doing so.
- Exemptions - We recognise that the exemptions to access in the Freedom of Information Act may allow us not to publish a document but do not prohibit us from publishing that document.
- Equality - We will develop an environment in which access to information is not dependant on a person's physical, social or educational circumstances, or first language.
- Charges - We reserve the right to charge any fee allowed by the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Information Regulations or Data Protection Act to help cover the cost of finding and making available the requested information. We will not seek to profit from the operation of FOI legislation - instead seeking only to cover our costs.