2. The FOIA Centre also makes requests under other “open-access” provisions, including the environmental information regulations (EIR), the data protection act, the access to health records act, the access to medical reports act and the US privacy act.
3. The FOIA Centre will file your requests to the relevant agencies after framing them to maximise the chance of your obtaining useful information.
4. The FOIA Centre can file your requests under “freedom of information” laws and environmental information regulations without disclosing your identity, or that of your organisation's, to the agency from which you are seeking information. Please tell us if you want this confidentiality.
5. The FOIA Centre will, on your behalf, monitor the response to a FOIA or open-access request. As part of the request fee, we will press an agency to respond if the time limit set down in law/guidelines expires. Requestors such as journalists often find they cannot devote the time necessary to press requests under “freedom of information” provisions.
6. The FOIA Centre will forward to you documents/information released following a FOIA or open-access request. We keep the information disclosed confidential to clients until they make use of them (eg for a newspaper, until it publishes an article based on the disclosures). Public bodies will, however, release the same material to anyone asking for it and will occasionally, unprompted, publish it to make it more widely available (but they do not release the identity of the requestor).
7. The FOIA Centre can, if it proves necessary and if you request it, ask an agency to review any decision to reject a FOIA or open-access request in part or in full; make a further complaint to the information commissioner (in the UK); and, beyond that, appeal to the information tribunal (in the UK). A further charge, equivalent to a single request fee, will be made for each stage. A FOIA Centre consultant can also represent you at any such appeal hearing.
8. The FOIA Centre can, if necessary, arrange for legal representation if you decide to press a request further to the High Court (in the UK) or as appropriate overseas.
9. The FOIA Centre, besides filing requests, can monitor and alert you to FOIA releases by public bodies in which you are especially interested. See prices for FOIA and open-access requests, FOIA monitoring and consultancy.
10. We also undertake wider-ranging research and investigative projects. In particular, we can investigate – for ‘personnel’ or ‘human resources’ departments – complaints or allegations raised in the workplace: click here for more information on this.
Page updated: 15.02.10
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||