We will provide advice and help if you have made or are thinking of making a request. This is to help you understand your rights under the Act.

We may contact you (perhaps by phone) to discuss your request with you and make sure we understand what information you want.

We will communicate to you the all information you have asked for unless:

• an exemption applies to some or all of it, or
• there is information about someone else included with yours and it is necessary to with hold some or all of it.

We will not:

• ask you why you want the information, or what it will be used for
• ask you to keep what we have told you confidential
• refuse any request unless an exemption applies.

What will happen next?

The director of the department that provides the service you have asked about will be responsible for answering your request but will probably ask the manager of that service to manage it.

He or she may need to ask for information from other managers in the council if your request has a wide scope. He or she might ask for advice within the department, or from the Information Management Officer, or the council's legal officers.

When the information has been collected together it will be checked to see if any exemptions apply.

Providing information to you might affect the rights of other people - "third parties". For instance it might include personal data about other people. If so we may contact them to help us decide whether the information should not be disclosed. Although we will take account of their views it will always be the council that makes the final decision.

We will reply to your request within 40 calendar days of receiving the request and proof of identity. We will normally provide a copy of the information you require, but in some circumstances, if there is a large volume of information, we may invite you to view the information.

Exemptions

We may withhold disclosure of information we hold about you where the law allows. The main exemptions are where information is held in order to:

• carry out council duties in relation to public health, social work and education
• carry out council regulatory and enforcement functions
• prevent or detect crime or apprehend or prosecute offenders
• and the disclosure would prejudice that work being done, or harm you.

If information is already published or available elsewhere (for instance in the Electoral Register) then we do not need to repeat it.

Complaints

If you are not happy with how we handled your request for personal information you can make a complaint to the manager of the relevant service. See making a complaint for more information.

If you are still not satisfied you can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

email: mail@ico.gsi.gov.uk