Slough Borough Council: Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information

The Freedom of Information Act promotes greater openness and accountability across the public sector. It gives a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, including:

local authorities
schools
colleges
universities

The act was passed on 30 November 2000 and brought into force in January 2005. Slough Borough Council has two main responsibilities under the act:

we have to produce a guide to the information we hold which is publicly available (a publication scheme whcih can be found below)
we must deal with individual requests for information

Anyone can make a request for information, although the request must be in a permanent form (eg a letter or e-mail).

If you would like to make a request for information please complete our simple online form.

The Freedom of Information Act gives the applicant two related rights:

the right to be told whether the information exists (the duty to confirm or deny)
the right to receive the information

The council has 20 working days to respond to requests.

There are 23 specific exemptions set out in the Freedom of Information Act, some of which we are already familiar with under the Data Protection Act. All the exemptions can be seen listed in the publication scheme found below.

For more information about:

the act please contact the FOI officer on 01753 875070 or e-mail FOI@slough.gov.uk. For general information about the act, visit the Information Commissioner's Office website which is the government website responsible for freedom of information
the schools' publication scheme please call 01753 875749

If you are not happy with the information you receive you can ask for a review. Your request for a review should be sent to foi@slough.gov.uk or in writing to:

Freedom of Information Co-ordinator
Slough Borough Council
St Martins Place
51 Bath Road
Slough, Berkshire
SL1 3UF.

Our FOI complaints procedure can be found below.

If you are still not happy after this stage you can make a complaint to:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113