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Procedural guidance

This Freedom of Information (FOI) Guidance on Processing Requests provides detailed guidance to officials applying the FOI Act to requests for information. It aims to ensure that officials are able to deal effectively with FOI requests.

The Guidance on Processing Requests provides the government's present view. In the light of practical experience and developments in case-law, this view may change. The Guidance on Processing Requests will be continuously updated to reflect these developments. Officials must bear this in mind, and be sure to refer to the most recent version of the guidance available on this site. If there is any doubt about practice to be followed, departments should refer to their FOI practitioners in the first instance. The Clearing House, based at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, will be a point of reference for FOI practitioners and should be referred to if difficulties remain.

At the bottom of the page you will find useful links through to the websites and documents referred to in this Guidance.

• Chapter 01: Purpose and Introduction
• Chapter 02: Your duty to answer requests for information
• Chapter 03: The limits of your duty to answer requests
• Chapter 04: What is a request
• Chapter 05: Assessing requests for information
• Chapter 06: Time and Fees Processes
• Chapter 07: Making decisions on release
• Chapter 08: Responding to the request
• Chapter 09: What if the applicant is unhappy with the response?
• Chapter 10: Records Management
• Annex A: What is a publication scheme
• Annex B: What are public authorities

Useful links:

• The Information Commissioner
  The Information Commissioner is the independent authority responsible for administering and enforcing the Act, including approval of publication schemes.
• The Scottish Information Commissioner
  The Scottish Information Commissioner is responsible for the promotion and enforcement of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
• The Information Tribunal
  Decisions of the Information Commissioner can be appealed to the Information Tribunal.
• The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
  DEFRA have responsibility for the Environmental Information Regulations which make specific provision for access to environmental information.
• The National Archives
  TNA produces policy and guidance on records management, and on public records held in archives offices, to enable public authorities to meet their obligations under the Act.
• DCA information on Data Protection
• Office of Public Sector Information
• Model Action Plans
• Generic User Specification
• Section 45 Code of Practice
• Section 46 Code of Practice
• The Freedom of Information Act

• Back to top

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