Information covered by the Act

All recorded information 'held' by a public authority is within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. It includes files, letters, emails and photographs and extends to closed files and archived material.

All recorded information held by a public authority is covered by the right to information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The following are factors that may need to be considered before deciding whether information falls within this description.

Recorded information
Stored information
Information, not documents
Is the information 'held' under the Freedom of Information Act?
Information held by another public authority
Information held by the National ArchivesProtectively marked information
Amended or deleted information

Recorded information

The right of access applies to information recorded in any form. This includes:

information that is held electronically (such as on a laptop computer or an electronic records management system)
information that is recorded on paper (such as a letter, memorandum or papers in a file)
sound and video recordings (such as a CD or videotape)
hand-written notes or comments, including those written in note pads or on Post-it notes

Increasingly, government records take the form of emails. It is the responsibility of all members of staff to manage their email messages appropriately. This means staff must identify email messages that are records of their business activities and those that are not.

It is important that email messages that form part of an official record are saved for as long as business needs require, and are moved from email accounts and personal folders and stored corporately in accordance with departmental record management procedures.

Email messages that do not form part of the official record should be managed within a mailbox in the short term, but permanently deleted when no longer required.

Stored information

The right of access also applies to information that is in storage, for example if it is in the public authority's filing systems or an outsourced records unit. There are special provisions concerning information that has been transferred to the National Archives (see below) or a similar place of deposit.

You should ensure that you have access to all of the information held by your authority which has been requested by the applicant before making any decision on release. You should ensure that all information has been requested from your authority's registry, or any outsourced records storage, in good time to allow you to respond to the request in its entirety within 20 working days.

Information, not documents

You should be aware that the Freedom of Information Act entitles individuals to have access to information and not to documents.

It may often be the case that the easiest way to provide the information is to supply a copy of the relevant document, since a document may contain the information that has been requested. However, it may also contain a great deal of other information.

Special provisions apply where the request asks for information to be provided in a particular form, for example, by sending the applicant a copy of the information - see How to make the information available for more details.

You may receive requests for information that would require the analysis or manipulation of information that you hold in order to create the requested information.

In many cases, it will be very simple to create the new information and you should consider doing this. For example, you might be asked for a list of the top five buildings in terms of the number of staff based there. You may not hold a list of buildings ranked by the number of staff, but if it is simple to produce, you may wish to do so in the interests of openness and customer service. However, you are not required to create new information to comply with a Freedom of Information request. Where you do create new information, it's a good idea to make this clear in your response and that it was done outside your obligations under the Act.

Is the information 'held' under the Freedom of Information Act?

'Holding' information includes holding a copy of a record produced or supplied by someone else. However, if a public authority only holds information on behalf of someone else, for example a department holding trade union information on their computer system, then that public authority may not have to provide the information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

In some cases, it may not be clear whether information which is physically present on your premises or systems is properly to be regarded as 'held' by your public authority, for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act. Examples include:

private material brought into the office by ministers or officials
material belonging to other people or bodies
trade union material
constituency material
material relating to party political matters

The same may be true of information held elsewhere 'on behalf of' your public authority.

Whether information, which is on your premises or systems, is held on behalf of someone else is a difficult question and will depend on the precise circumstances involved. If you are dealing with a request and you think that the relevant information may only be held on behalf of someone else then it is important to seek advice from your freedom of information specialist.

Information held by another public authority

From time to time, you will receive requests for information which your authority does not hold, but which another public authority may hold.

For more information on how to deal with such requests, see Transferring requests.

Information held by the National Archives

Different rules apply in relation to information which has been transferred to the National Archives by a department. Any information in the National Archives is deemed to be held by the National Archives. Therefore, the decision on releasing material rests with the National Archives, who will consult the department that placed the material there, where this is required by the Act. If you have any questions regarding this process, or would like further information on the application of exemptions to historical information, please contact the National Archives' freedom of information centre

If information is held by the National Archives you should:

respond to the applicant, stating that your authority does not hold the information, but that it has been transferred to the National Archives
recommend that they make a new request to the National Archives

Enquiries from members of the public to the National Archives can be directed to:

The National Archives
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU

Telephone: 020 8876 3444
Email

Protectively marked information

The purpose of the protective marking system is to protect sensitive government information. It is defined in guidance issued by the Cabinet Office. Protective markings and descriptors (for instance 'restricted' or 'confidential') dictate how information is to be stored, copied and communicated. The principle is that information is marked according to the damage that would result from its unauthorised disclosure, and it is then protected by the handling measures associated with the marking.

A protective marking may be an indicator that an exemption should at least be considered, but it is not definitive. Conversely, although information that needs to be safeguarded for reasons of effective governance would normally be expected to bear a protective marking, this may not always be the case.

When dealing with a request for information in a document that has a protective marking, it is always important to consider that the protective marking may no longer be current, and, while the protective marking reflects the highest classification of the information contained in a document or file, only a small part of the content might warrant that classification. Wherever possible, reference should be made to the originator of the document in order to determine fully and accurately the present sensitivity of the information requested.

Amended or deleted information

The right of access to information under the Freedom of Information Act applies to information held by your public authority at the time that the request is received. If it appears that requested information has been amended or deleted, it is important to identify whether this was done before or after the request was received.

Information deleted from the system before the request was received

Instructing a computer to delete a particular item may not result in the item being destroyed immediately. At least for a period, the information might still be retrievable, albeit at substantial cost and with potential disruption to the system. However, where it is the intention that data should be permanently deleted, and this is not achieved only because the technology will not permit it, authorities may regard such data as having been permanently deleted. This information is no longer considered to be 'held' by the authority and does not have to be retrieved or provided in response to a request.

This approach is not justified where the information has only been temporarily deleted and is stored in such a way that it could easily be recovered, for example from the Deleted Items folder in Outlook. This information is still considered to be 'held' by the department and may have to be provided if a request is received.

Information amended before a request was received

It is possible that you will hold multiple versions of a piece of text. If you are in any doubt about which version or versions should be disclosed, you should consult your freedom of information practitioner.

Information that is deleted or amended after the request was received

Information held by an authority must not be deleted or amended in order to avoid complying with a freedom of information request. Altering, defacing, blocking, erasing, destroying or concealing information in order to avoid providing it in response to a freedom of information request may constitute a criminal offence under section 77 of the Freedom of Information Act for which the person convicted will be held personally responsible.

If requested information is deleted from any computer, a hard copy records management system, or an electronic filing system in line with the authority's standard records management practices after a request is received, the information is not considered to be held by the public authority. This will only apply if it can be shown that the person who made the deletion had no knowledge of the request, and that they were following standard records management practice and timetables when they deleted the information.