PROVISION OF ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE

The Council will try to make as much non-personal information available as possible via its FOIA Publication Scheme Catalogue, more generally on the Council’s web site or other appropriate means.

The Council will seek to pro-actively publish information that is in the public interest and which promotes openness and transparency of decision making by the Council.

How we make information publicly available will be reviewed as necessary or as required by the legislation.

Providing advice & assistance to help applicants when they make requests for access to information.

All employees of the Council will provide advice and assistance in response to requests for access to information in so far as they reasonably can and where such help is required.

The Council is under an obligation by law to provide advice and assistance in respect of the FOIA.

Advice and assistance under the FOIA will include, but will not necessarily be limited to:-

*  publishing procedures for applicants to refer to about how the Council will deal with requests for information;

*  advising applicants about their rights of access under the relevant legislation;

*  advising applicants about other agencies (e.g. the CAB) that may be able to help them to make requests, or offering such assistance directly;

*  providing further details about information held, so that applicants can more accurately describe what they are seeking access to, for example:-

   -  an outline of different types or categories of information held, which might meet the terms of the request;
   -  provision of detailed catalogues or indexes, where these are available.

Where the Council has offered all the advice and assistance that it deems to be reasonable and the applicant still fails to describe the information requested in a way which enables the Council to identify and locate it, no further attempts will be made to seek clarification.  The Council will, however, provide whatever information is has identified and located that it believes to be relevant to the application, subject to any exemptions and/or the public interest test.