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Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information (FoI) Act enables you to access official information held by the council.

If you wish to make a request for information, please note that:

• Requests must be submitted in writing.
• You do not have to explain to us why you require the information requested.
• We aim to release the information unless there is a reason why we cannot, which is known as an exemption.
• We have 20 working days to respond to your request.  If this is not possible we will advise you and provide an anticipated response date.
• We aim to make information available free of charge, however, in some circumstances an administration charge may be payable.

To make an information request, please contact us.

Further guidance is available from the Information Commissioner's Office.

The Ministry of Justice, Local Government Association and the Information Commissioner's Office are encouraging local authorities to publish performance statistics, similar to central government. We have followed the recommendation and our statistics are set out in the  FoI Performance Report [32KB].  

The headline figures for the 2009 calendar year are summarised below:

• 260 requests were received.
• 241 requests (93 per cent) were completed within 20 working days.
• 223 requestors (86 per cent) received all of the information they asked for in full.
• 22 requests (8 per cent) could not be completed because we did not hold the information.
• 10 requestors (4 per cent) received only part of the information requested.