Freedom of Information

What can I request?

The Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Information Regulations and INSPIRE Regulations give you the rights to access official information.

Under the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations you have a right to request any recorded information held by a public authority, such as a government department, local council or state school. Environmental information requests can also be made to certain non-public bodies carrying out a public function.

You can ask for any information you think a public authority may hold. The right only covers recorded information which includes information held on computers, in emails and in printed or handwritten documents as well as images, video and audio recordings.

You should identify the information you want as clearly as possible.
Your request can be in the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, but the authority does not have to answer your question if this would mean creating new information or giving an opinion or judgement that is not already recorded.
Some information may not be given to you because it is exempt, for example because it would unfairly reveal personal details about somebody else.

You do not have to know whether the information you want is covered by the Environmental Information Regulations or the Freedom of Information Act. When you make a request, it is for the public authority to decide which law they need to follow.

The INSPIRE Regulations require public authorities that hold spatial or geographic information to make it available so that you can search it in particular ways.

The majority of requests are free, however there may be charges if the request takes over 18 hours work. A list of charges can be found in the Council's Publication Scheme.

To make a Freedom of Information request please complete the Freedom of Information Request form

For more information visit the Information Commissioner's Office website