Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations

Requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 must be made in writing and include your name, postal or email address and details of the information required.
Before you make a request for information, please check whether the information is already available on our website or has already been made public, for example through City of Doncaster Council's Publication Scheme or Disclosure Log. Further details regarding these are detailed below.
As a Public Authority, City of Doncaster Council is required to provide advice and assistance to people who have made or who are thinking of making a request. This will help applicants understand their rights under the Act and identify the information they want.

Response
You can either ask for a copy of the requested information or to inspect records held. You should expect a response within 20 working days.

Exemptions
If any of the information requested is exempt from release you will be told which of the exemptions has been relied on to withhold the information and why.

Charges
Most requests are free but you might be asked to pay a small amount for photocopies and postage. Where the cost of meeting your request is more than the legal limit (currently about 18 hours of working time or £450), we’ll advise you and give you the opportunity to narrow your request. In other cases where we have to spend money to give you information, we may ask you to pay this amount. We will always let you know if there are any costs in meeting your request. You can then decide whether you want to go ahead with your request. If a fee is chargeable it must be paid before any information is searched for.

Requests for information under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 can be made in writing (including email), via telephone, in person or any other material form. These Regulations are part of Freedom of Information legislation and give a right of access to environmental information held by public authorities. Environmental information is any information about the activities of public authorities that relate to or affect the environment.

Response
You should expect a response within 20 working days however if the request is for a large amount of information that is very complex and it would be impracticable to respond within this time, the Regulations allow the period to be extended up to 40 working days. You will be notified that we are extending the time for compliance as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after you have submitted your request.

Exceptions
Like the Freedom of Information Act, if any of the information requested is exempt from release this will be withheld using an exception under Environmental Information Regulations. You will be told which of the exceptions has been relied on to withhold the information and why.

Charges
The Environmental Information Regulations allow a public authority to charge for providing environmental information. This fee is set by City of Doncaster Council at £46 per hour or part thereof. If a request does incur a fee you will be notified within 20 working days. If you then wish to proceed with the request, the information will be provided as soon as is possible, within 20 working days of the payment.

If you are not happy with the response you receive you should first advise City of Doncaster Council, details of how to do this will be included in your response. If you are still unhappy you may contact the Information Commissioners Office who will decide whether the request has been handled appropriately. For other information about the Act, see the Information Commissioners Office.

As set out above, the information you require may already be available by other means, however, should you wish to make a Freedom of Information or Environmental Information Regulation request, you can do so by emailing FOI@doncaster.gov.uk.

You may find we have previously responded to a request you are thinking of making therefore you might find it helpful to review City of Doncaster Council's FOI/EIR Disclosure Log where you can view responses we have made to the requests we have received.

The Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations requires every public authority to adopt and maintain a publication scheme and to publish information in accordance with the scheme. City of Doncaster Council's publication scheme is intended to be a guide to the information which we routinely publish. You can download our Publication Scheme document to find out more from the Downloads and Resources section below.

The Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 (RoPSI) require City of Doncaster Council to make information that is accessible and produced as part of our public task available for re-use unless restricted or excluded. ‘Public task’ means our core responsibilities and functions, as defined in legislation or established through custom and practice.
In general, any information that is accessible, either because it has been published or because it has been released under Freedom of Information legislation or other access legislation will be made available for re-use.
RoPSI does not apply to information that would be exempt from disclosure under information access legislation, i.e. the Data Protection Act (the DPA), the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR), and the INSPIRE regulations. However, information that would be exempt from an access request under section 21 of FOIA because it is already reasonably accessible to the requester (for example because it is on our website) would normally be available for re-use.
RoPSI does not apply to recorded information we hold if someone else holds the intellectual property rights (e.g. copyright or database right). We can only permit re-use if we hold the intellectual property rights in the information.

What is re-use?
Re-use means using public sector information, for a purpose other than the initial public task it was produced for. Typically, this would mean an individual, a company or other organisation taking information we have produced and republishing it or using it to produce a new product or resource, often by combining it with other information. This is sometimes, though not always, on a commercial basis. RoPSI is intended to encourage re-use of public sector information.

The Information Asset List
RoPSI requires the council to publish a list of the main information we hold within our public task. This information is published within the Council’s FOIA publication scheme and disclosure log. Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations - City of Doncaster Council

Requests for Re-use
If information is already published and accessible and the City of Doncaster Council (CDC) holds the copyright, you do not need to make a request for re-use but you must comply with the terms of the Open Government Licence (OGL). This includes content published on the CDC website (not including logos), unless otherwise stated. Where information is not released under the OGL, you will need to request permission for re-use under the RoPSI regulations.
If you want to make a request to re-use information you should write to us at foi@doncaster.gov.uk. Please include your name and address, details of the information you would like to re-use and the purpose you intend to use the information for. When we receive your request, we will deal with it within 20 working days, unless your request is extensive or particularly complex. Our response will tell you about any conditions for re-use, and if you will be charged a fee to re-use the information. In most cases information will be available to re-use free of charge, however, if you require paper copies of documents we may charge for copies, postage and packing. We may impose conditions on re-use but you will be notified if this is the case.