1 October 2024The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published a new checklist to help Freedom of Information (FOI) practitioners working in small public authorities.
The tool provides helpful tips for searching internally for information to answer FOI requests.
Deborah Clark, ICO Upstream Regulation Manager, said: ‘We know that many of those dealing with FOI requests in small organisations are time poor and are juggling answering FOI requests with other duties. This checklist is a quick and simple way for them to increase their confidence in conducting FOI searches and help them find the correct information first time.’
The checklist, which can be found on their website, guides public authorities through the key steps of searching internally for the information to answer a request. As well as this, they’ve updated their ‘Guide to managing an FOI request’ page to provide further guidance, including examples of Section 14 FOIA vexatious requests.
There is more detail on the ICO’s work to support public authorities to be open and transparent in Deborah’s recent blog post.
FOI practitioners are also welcome to sign up to the ICO’s annual, free, virtual conference on Tuesday 8 October. This covers both data protection and freedom of information, with workshops about handling FOI requests and what to do if you have an FOI complaint.
