Freedom of information and environmental information regulations
View a full index of our freedom of information and environmental information guidance for organisations.
Advice and assistance
Codes of practice
- Section 45 Code of practice – request handling
- Section 46 Code of practice – records management
- Regulation 16 Code of Practice – Discharge of obligations of public authorities under the EIR
Confirm or deny
Costs and fees
- Calculating costs where a request spans different access regimes
- Charging for environmental information
- Fees that may be charged when the cost of compliance does not exceed the appropriate limit
- Fees that may be charged when the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit
- Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit
Datasets
Deceased people
Destroying information
Environmental information – general
- Guide to Environmental Information Regulations
- How we deal with complaints: a guide for public authorities
- Information in the public domain (if some information is already publicly available)
- What is environmental information?
Exceptions – environmental
- Regulation 12(4)(a) Information not held – please see ‘Holding information’ below.
- Regulation 12(4)(b): Manifestly unreasonable requests
- Regulation 12(4)(c): Requests formulated in too general a manner
- Regulation 12(4)(d): Material in the course of completion, unfinished documents and incomplete data
- Regulation 12(4)(e): Internal communications
- Regulation 12(5)(a): International relations, defence, national security or public safety
- Regulation 12(5)(b) – The course of justice and inquiries exception
- Regulation 12(5)(c): Intellectual property rights
- Regulation 12(5)(d): Confidentiality of proceedings
- Regulation 12(5)(e): Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information
- Regulation 12(5)(f): Interests of the person who provided the information to the public authority
- Regulation 12(5)(g): Protection of the environment
- Regulation 12(9): Information on emissions
- Regulation 13: personal information
Exemptions – freedom of information
- Section 21: information reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means
- Sections 22 and 22A: Information intended for future publication and research information
- Section 23: security bodies
- Section 24: safeguarding national security
- How Section 23 and 24 interact
- Section 26 – defence
- Section 27: international relations
- Section 28: relations within the UK
- Section 29: the economy
- Section 30: Investigations and proceedings
- Section 31: law enforcement
- Section 32 – Court, inquiry or arbitration records
- Section 33: public audit
- Section 34: parliamentary privilege
- Section 35: government policy
- Section 36: effective conduct of public affairs
- Section 36: record of the qualified person’s opinion
- Section 37: communications with Her Majesty and the awarding of honours
- Section 38: health and safety
- Section 39: environmental information
- Section 40: personal information
- Section 40: access to information held in complaint files
- Section 40: requests for personal data about public authority employees
- Section 41: information provided in confidence
- Section 42: legal professional privilege
- Section 43: commercial interest
- Section 44: prohibitions on disclosure
Freedom of information – general
- Guide to Freedom of Information
- How we deal with complaints – a guide for public authorities
- Impact of disclosure on the voluntary supply of information
- Information in the public domain (if some information is already publicly available)
- Intellectual property rights and disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act
Holding information
- Determining whether information is held
- Information held by a public authority for the purposes of the EIR
- Information held by a public authority for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act
- Official information held in non-corporate communications channels
- Determining whether we hold environmental information
MPs' correspondence
Outsourcing
The prejudice test
Property searches
Public authorities
Publication schemes
- Charging for information in a publication scheme
- Definition documents and template guides to information
- EIR proactive dissemination
- Model publication scheme
- Model publication scheme (Welsh)
- Model publication scheme for bodies only covered for certain information
- Model publication scheme: using the definition documents
- What should be published: minutes and agendas
Public interest test
- The public interest test
- How exceptions and the public interest test work in the Environmental Information Regulations
- Information in the public domain (if some information is already publicly available)
Refusing a request
Request handling
- Consideration of the applicant’s identity or motives
- Do I have to create information to answer a request
- Flowchart of request handling under FOIA
- Form and format of information (Regulation 6)
- Guidance on circular (or round robin) requests
- Internal reviews under the EIR
- Interpreting and clarifying requests
- Means of communicating information
- Recognising a request made under the Freedom of Information Act
- Request Handling – Frequently Asked Questions
- Requests about previous information requests (meta requests)
- The right to recorded information and requests for documents
- Verbal request log sheet for environmental information
- Keeping internal consultations on FOI requests timely and transparent - a short guide for public authorities
Time limits for compliance
- Time limits for compliance under the EIR
- Time limits for compliance under the FOIA
- Assessing the level of your compliance with FOIA and EIR timescales