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Home > Publications > Forms & Guidance > Guidance for professionals > Publication scheme > Part one

Publication scheme

Part one: introduction

Contents | Part two: classes of information

Part one is an introduction to our publication scheme and covers the Freedom of Information Act, charging for publications, copyright, requests for personal information and feedback on the scheme.

Role of the Department for Constitutional Affairs

The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) is the Government Department responsible for upholding justice, rights and democracy: the foundation of a civilised society. We work from the simple rule that we assist the public - not the providers.

The Departments role is to drive forward the reform and improvement of the legal justice system in England and Wales. We are responsible for upholding the rule of law and for reforming and safeguarding the constitution, so that they serve the public effectively.

DCA is responsible for the administration of the courts in England and Wales including Her Majesty's Court Service and the overall management of legal aid and sponsorship of the Legal Services Commission. Also associated with DCA are a number of organisations such as the Public Guardianship Office, the Law Commission, the National Archives and Her Majesty's Land Registry.

The administrative functions of the Scotland Office (as well as the Office of the Scottish Advocate General) and the Wales Office, lie with DCA. Responsibility for the maintenance and relationship between Westminster and the devolved administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff, remain with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales respectively.

Both the HM Court Service and Public Guardianship Office Publication schemes have been included here. The Scotland Office scheme is available in hard copy by writing to: Information Officer, Scotland Office, 1st floor Meridian Court, Cadogan Street, Glasgow G6 2AT and the Wales Office scheme is available in hard copy by writing to: The Wales Office, Gwydyr House, Whitehall, London SW1A 2ER.

Freedom of Information Act 2000: Introduction

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 [Footnote 1] (the Act) establishes a general right of access to recorded information held by public authorities: sets out exemptions from that right; and places a number of obligations on public authorities. The Act applies to a huge number of public authorities, including Government Departments. Under the Act, you are entitled to make requests for information held by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, (unless the information is falls under one of the specific exemptions in the Act):

  1. to be informed in writing by the Department whether it holds information of the description specified in your request, and
  2. if that is the case, to have that information communicated to you.

All requests must be dealt with promptly and within 20 working days. The Act also provides for an appeal mechanism whereby you may apply to the Information Commissioner, for a decision as to whether the Department dealt with a specific request in accordance with the Act. In most cases we will not charge a fee for processing Freedom of Information requests.

Applicants who may experience difficulty with communicating in writing, may have their request dealt with over the phone. A note of your request will be taken and read back to you, to confirm that the request has been correctly captured.

Publication scheme: Introduction

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 all public authorities are obliged to adopt and maintain a Publication scheme specifying -

The purpose of the Publication scheme is to ensure that a large amount of information is readily available to members of the public, i.e. without the need for specific consideration under the Freedom of Information Act, and to inform the public of the extent of material that is available.

By readily available we mean that the information is available on the Department's website, another website, may be purchased from The Stationery Office, may be obtained from a public library or will be supplied immediately on receipt of a letter or telephone call to this Department.


Part 2 sets out the classes of information that the Department for Constitutional Affairs publishes or intends to publish, the format in which the information is available and whether the information is available free of charge or on payment.

Relationship with the Information Asset Register

You may also access information about our Department via the Information Asset Register (IAR). The IAR is an HMSO led Internet initiative designed to provide a guide to the unpublished information resources held by Government Departments. The DCA IAR is one of the largest within Government and additionally includes a number of published information resources. Each DCA IAR entry identifies the DCA staff member that users should contact for further information or to gain a copy of the document. For further information about Information Asset registers and their links with publication schemes see HMSO's Guidance note 18 which can be viewed on the HMSO website.

Each Department is responsible for creating its records within its own departmental asset register. These are then submitted to the central IAR at HMSO. The central IAR covers all Government Departments and other Crown Bodies and can be found on the HMSO website.

Responsibility for the publication scheme

The Director General, Strategy has overall responsibility for the Department for Constitutional Affairs publication scheme.

The person responsible for maintaining the publication scheme on a daily basis is:

Mosun Hassan
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Access Rights Unit, 5th Floor,
30 Millbank
London SW1P 4XB

Publication scheme: Contacting the Department

If you wish to obtain a hard copy of any of the publications contained within the publication scheme, please write to or telephone:

Corporate Correspondence Unit
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Access Rights Unit, 5th Floor
30 Millbank
London SW1P 4XB

Telephone: 020 7210 8500
Email

Charging for publications

In Part 2 we indicate for each class whether the class includes chargeable information or not. Where a class does not contain chargeable information, this means that a single copy or printout would be available for free, whereas requests for multiple copies or print-outs may attract a charge for photocopying or postage purposes.

One of the following categories will be applicable:

  1. free of charge on website (i.e. there is no charge by us, although the user would of course have to meet any charges by their Internet service provider, personal printing costs, etc). For those without Internet access, a single print-out as on the website would be available by post at the above contact address. However, requests for multiple printouts, or for archived copies of documents that are no longer available on the web, may attract a charge for the cost of photocopy, postage, etc. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
  2. free of charge hard copy, e.g. a leaflet, booklet or a printout from the department's intranet site. A single copy would be available by post at the above contact address. However, requests for multiple printouts, may attract a charge for the cost of photocopy, postage, etc. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
  3. free of charge to view at a designated office but charge for photocopy. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
  4. information available via a website, but a charge may have to be paid before the main part of the information could be accessed. This may arise, e.g. where the website is used to deliver a value-added customised service, particularly where the basic data is also available to private sector users who may provide their own value-added service. Where this applies, the reason for the charge and the level of charges would be advertised;
  5. chargeable hard copy e.g. "glossy" or other bound paper copies, or in some cases a CD Rom, video or other mediums, are chargeable.

Copyright

The Department for Constitutional Affairs is a Crown body and the information we produce is subject to Crown copyright, which is administered by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. The material listed in this Publication scheme is Crown copyright unless stated otherwise. The copyright in some of the material which may be found in this Publication scheme has been waived, meaning you can reproduce this material freely. Categories of material for which copyright has been waived include: government press notices, legislation and explanatory notes on the legislation, ministerial speeches, consultation documents, documents featured on official websites (except where expressly indicated otherwise), headline statistics and unpublished public records. More details of these and other categories can be found on the HMSO website.

For other types of material however, the supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright, for example, by making multiple copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public.

Brief extracts of any of the material included in this Publication scheme may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news reporting.

Details of the arrangements for reusing Crown copyright material can be found on HMSO's website or by contacting Her Majesty's Stationery Office at:

Her Majesty's Stationery Office
Licensing Division
St Clements House
2-16 Colegate
Norwich
NR3 1BQ

Tel: 01603 621000
Fax: 01603 723000

Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by the Crown should be sought from the copyright holders concerned. If in doubt, users should contact Her Majesty's Stationery Office in the first instance.

Requests for information under the Environmental Information Regulations

If you wish to make a request for information under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), please write to:

Mosun Hassan
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Access Rights Unit, 5th Floor
30 Millbank
London SW1P 4XB

Requests for Personal Information: the Data Protection Act 1998

You have a statutory right of access (certain exemptions apply) to personal data about yourself under the Data Protection Act 1998 [Footnote 1]. The right of access here is to personal data held on computer or on structured manual files and you are entitled to be informed whether any personal data concerning yourself is being held by the “data controller” i.e., the Department, and, if so

You are also entitled to be given a copy of the information with any unintelligible terms explained and to be given any information available to the Department as to the source of the data. The Freedom of Information Act extends this right to access to personal data held on any type of file.

If you wish to apply for access to your personal data, known as a “subject access request”, you should write to the Departmental Data Protection Compliance Officer at

Department for Constitutional Affairs
5th Floor,
30 Millbank
London SW1P 4XB

A request for access to personal data must be dealt with promptly and, in any event, within 40 days of receipt of the request. We may charge a fee, not exceeding £10.

If you consider that a request by you for access to your personal data was not dealt with in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 you may take further action as follows:

  1. You may apply to the court alleging a failure to comply with the subject access provisions of the 1998 Act. The court may make an order requiring compliance with those provisions and may also award compensation for any damage you have suffered as a result and any associated distress.
  2. You may write to the Information Commissioner, who may do one of the following: -
    1. make an assessment as to whether it is likely or unlikely that the Department has complied with the 1998 Act
    2. issue enforcement proceedings if he is satisfied that the Department has contravened one of the Data Protection Principles
    3. recommend that you apply to court alleging a failure to comply with the subject access provisions of the 1998 Act.

Comments and complaints about the publication scheme

If you have any comments about our Publication scheme or if you think we have not supplied information in accordance with our scheme then you should write, in the first instance, to:

Mosun Hassan
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Access Rights Unit, 5th Floor,
30 Millbank
London
SW1P 4XB

If, after the investigation of your complaint, you remain dissatisfied then you may ask for the matter to be internally reviewed. If you are still dissatisfied then you may refer your complaint to the Information Commissioner.

We aim to deal with the investigation of complaints within 20 working days and we aim to complete internal reviews also within 20 working days.

Review of the publication scheme

We will review our publication scheme in November 2006 and annually thereafter.

Footnotes:

  1. Copies of the Act are obtainable, for a charge, from the Stationery Office. A copy of the Act is also available via HMSO website at www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk [back]

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