JISC Legal : Freedom of Information

The FOI Essentials paper provides introductory guidance on the general right of public access to recorded information held by public authorities including colleges and universities.

This overview paper describes the relevance of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) for FE and HE.

This briefing addresses the legal issues that further and higher education institutions may face when engaging with employers as part of their Business and Community Engagement ("BCE") activities.

Our Mobile Technologies and the Law webcast (streamed live on 14 March 2012) can now be accessed in captioned, bite-sized segments.  

Whatever the mobile technology use, there are legal issues to consider from the outset of your project and this is a checklist of the main areas to consider in your planning process.

This guidance is designed to help institutions deal with consent management when sharing personal data across and between institutions and external service providers.

Whether you work in a teaching, research, management or support capacity, the toolkit will help you to make confident, informed decisions about implementing cloud computing solutions in your institution.

An up-to-date, accessible guide for senior managers on ICT law within FE and HE.

JISC's Freedom of Information and Research Data: Questions and Answers, written by Andrew Charlesworth and Chris Rusbridge, is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/foiresearchdata.

These Top Ten Tips were created to celebrate JISC Legal's 10th anniversary, all the while looking forward to the challenges UK FE and HE will face in the next ten years.

The first part of our series on Business and Community Engagement (BCE). This video covers the legal implications of data sharing and research, the application of the Data Protection Act and the application of Freedom of Information legislation. 

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published new guidance to help institutions identify appropriate charges for requests received under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR).

The FOI Essentials paper provides introductory guidance on the general right of public access to recorded information held by public authorities including colleges and universities.

 Scotland has its own Freedom of Information legislation. The Freedom of Information(Scotland) Act 2002 has been fully in force since ... (cont)

Firstly it is necessary to try and distinguish between emails which contain information which are business records and emails which are just  ... (cont)

The Climate Change Act 2008 requires colleges and universities, directly or indirectly, to take action to reduce carbon emissions in order to contribute to the national targets for carbon reduction... (cont'd)

We are pleased to announce the launch of JISC Legal Plus - a new staff development service bringing JISC Legal's expertise to your institution at competitive prices...  (cont'd)

 S.14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (and similarly s.14 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002) provide a exemption to release if ... (cont)

As PhD theses contain information which is held by the institution, in general, they will be subject to FOI requests as with any other information ... (cont)

No, the Act provides that information is information recorded in any form - if information is not recorded, it is not information for the purposes of the Act.

 There are a number of aspects to this which must be considered: (a) The Scottish and UK Freedom of Information Acts provide a statutory right of access ... (cont)

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to all information held by a college (and pretty much irrespective of whose information it is) ... (cont)

Links to further resources.

A new bill seeking to strengthen Scotland's freedom of information legislation is being considered by their government.

The Information Rights Tribunal has ruled that the names of three junior members of staff who dealt with complaints made to the Financial Services Authority should have been disclosed as part of a Freedom of Information request. 

The High Court states that even where private individuals are expressing their own views online the requirements of lawful processing in the DPA can apply.

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 are now in force and require that Equality Duty compliance information must be published by the end of January 2012.

Came into force on 31 December 2009.   

The Government has launched a consultation on Open Data.  

The Climate Change Act 2008 requires colleges and universities, directly or indirectly, to take action to reduce carbon emissions in order to contribute to the national targets for carbon reduction... (cont'd)

A data controller is able to anonymise originally-personal data to make it free of data protection law constraints.

Inform, the Scottish Information Commissioner’s latest newsletter on relevant FOI related legal developments and recent decisions includes a roundup of decisions considering whether remuneration -related information of public authority staff should be disclosed.

This latest decision on disclosure of information prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs as it applies to statistical information outlines the ICO current thinking on the application of the prejudice and public interest tests. 
 

New law gives individuals more control over what information organisations can store on their computer.

The Scottish Information Commissioner pilots a single model publication scheme for public authorities from Feb 2011.

The Freedom of Information (Amendment Bill) is currently making its way through Parliament and is due to be further debated on the 18th March 2011.

The first undertaking under Freedom of information includes a requirement for mandatory advance training which may have wider implications for the education sector.

The Bill proposes to extend the number of public authorities subject to its provisions and this includes the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and the General Teaching Council for Scotland but university and colleges are not currently included.

Data protection law needs to provide more clarity on what actually constitutes personal data.

A consultation by the GEO seeks views on proposals for draft regulations on the new public sector equality duty.

ACAS guide offers practical tips on the impact of social networking on discipline and grievances, bullying, defamation, data protection and privacy.

A dedicated 'one stop shop' has been produced, telling the public about their FOI rights, and a step by step guide on how to use them.

Information Commissioner publishes top tips on freedom of information for public authority communications professionals.

The Scottish Information Commissioner has published an updated edition of the guide for Scottish Public Authorities on Investigations detailing the procedure followed in an investigation and what information will be required from a public authority.

Guidance for public sector organisationsaims to make current equality law more consistent, clearer and easier to follow in order to make society fairer.

The Office of the Information Commissioner's website provides a wealth of information and guidelines on both data protection and freedom of information.

In October 2007 JISC infoNet launched the new Business Classification Scheme and Records Retention Schedule for Higher Education institutions.

In order to assist Scottish public authorities (including education institutions) who wholly own active or dormant companies, the Scottish Information Commissioner has prepared model schemes. The model schemes can be accessed from the web site at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/web/FILES/pocdormant.doc  and
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/web/FILES/pocactive.doc.

Guidance and resources to help those who work in central government, or other public authorities, to deal with freedom of information requests.http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/freedom-of-information.htm

A personal view by Steve Bailey of changes in records management and what they might mean.

An example of a records management policy, produced by the Scottish police in consultation with various central agencies such as the Scottish Criminal Records Office. Version 2 produced by the ACPOS FOI group on 25th April 2005.
http://www.centralscotland.police.uk/foi/docs/acpos_records_retention_schedule.pdf.

RecordKeeping was published quarterly between 2004 and 2009 covering news, case studies and examples of best practice from The National Archives and the wider archives and records management communities. 

This section contains details of policies and legislation that relate to or have an impact on archives and records management, such as the Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Act and the current acts relating to archive services at local and regional levels.

The vast majority of government records are now produced electronically and The National Archives works with central and local government organisations to ensure that this information is both stored securely and easily accessible.

Good records and information management is essential if the government is to meet the requirements of Data Protection, Freedom of Information and Human Rights legislation.  Under agreement with the ICO this is done through a programme of information management assessments.

The CFOI has campaigned against unnecessary secrecy and for the Freedom of Information Acts in the UK.
http://www.cfoi.org.uk/.
The site includes an easy to read guide on the FOI legislation for both Scotland and the UK, with additional commentary on other relevant related legislation such as the Environmental Information Regulations and Data Protection.
http://www.cfoi.org.uk/pdf/foi_guide.pdf.