Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information Requests is not about your personal data or information but about the work that we do as an organisation. We do not need to create new information to respond to your request, but we are able to provide you information that we already hold.

Requests need to pass the public interest test, which means the request is for information should be for ‘public good’ and not what may be of interest to you or may benefit you personally. Freedom of Information requests may have certain exemptions applied to them, for instance personal information and opinions will be redacted to protect other people. Information is also available on our website via the publication scheme and we may decline to fulfil and FOI request if it is already published.

Find out more

You can read more about our process in our policy hub. 

Fee and charges

We may request a reasonable fee for any Freedom of Information requests we receive.  

We publish a lot of information which can be downloaded directly from our website for free.   For all other requests charge based on the following calculation: employee costs + material costs = total costs.

Material costs charged at the following:

  • Papercopy - black and white - 10p per sheet
  • Papercopy - colour - 20p per sheet
  • USB device - £4.99 per memory stick required
  • Postage - recharged at cost to the Association 

When we receive a request, we will estimate the total cost of dealing with the request and issue a fee notice to the requester based on the following:

Less than £100 No fees will be charged
From £100 to £600 10% of total costs will be charged 
For any costs above £600 10% of total costs up to £600 will be charged plus any additional costs to be charged in full