Liverpool City Council - Freedom of information

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Friday 16 May 2008

What is the Freedom of Information Act 2000?

The freedom of information act is an Act of Parliament passed in 2000, which has been introduced and implemented in a rolling programme. It has been created with the specific aims of:-

• Promoting a culture of openness and accountability amongst public authorities by providing people with rights of access to the information held by them.
• Facilitate better public understanding of how public authorities carry out their duties, why they make the decisions they do and how they spend public money.                       

There are two main obligations for Public authorities to carry out, these obligations are:

• To create, maintain and adopt a Publication Scheme, which sets out the Classes of information which are held by the public authority which it will routinely make available, how the information can be obtained and whether there are any charges for the information. The Publication Scheme is both a commitment to make certain information available as well as being a guide to how the information can be obtained. The public is entitled to request to see a copy of the authority's Publication Scheme. 
  
• The publication scheme is currently being revised and will be uploaded to this webpage in due course, however, you can still access the existing publication scheme.  For any enquiries in relation to Freedom of Information or Data Protection please contact the Information Manager on 0151 225 3132 or email on informationrequests@liverpool.gov.uk. 
  
• From the 1st January 2005, people have the right to request in writing information held by a public authority ("known as the right to know") and each public authority must comply with written requests for the information that it holds unless an exemption from disclosure applies. Public authorities will normally have a maximum of twenty working days to respond to the request; there are some circumstances when this time limit can be extended.                       

All public authorities are required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and a comprehensive list of the types of organisation, public bodies, local government, government generally as well as educational, and health services and providers which fall into the defined group of Public authorities can be found in Schedules, schedule1 within the Act itself.

Further information on freedom of information can be found at the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Liverpool City Council has appointed an officer to deal with enquiries relating to the Freedom of Information Act, if you have any specific questions relating to this legislation, Liverpool City Councils' Publication Scheme or how to access information please contact the Information Manager on 0151 225 3132 or email on informationrequests@liverpool.gov.uk.