Freedom Of Information Act Responsibilities

 The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was passed by the Scottish Parliament in April 2002 and provides a right of access by the public to information held by public authorities.

The Act is closely modelled on the Freedom of Information Act 2000, passed by the Westminster parliament and applicable to most UK public bodies.  The Scottish Act applies to the public authorities specified in Schedule 1 of the Act.  This includes all local authorities but not registered social landlords (like Cube Housing Association) as they are not regarded as public bodies for the purposes of the Act.

The Act includes powers under Sections 4 and 5 for the Scottish Parliament to amend its coverage.  Section 4 allows changes to the list of Scottish public authorities in Schedule 1 of the Act.  Section 5 provides powers to designate further bodies which appear to Scottish Ministers to be exercising a public function, or which are providing a service under contract to a public authority.   These powers have not yet been exercised as the primary goal to date has been to make the legislation work effectively for the 10,000 bodies which are currently covered.

At some point in the future, registered social landlords such as Cube Housing Association Ltd., may well be included as public authorities under the terms of the (amended) Act.

Other legislation enabling access to information

Various other legislation provides that a public authority is under duty to provide information (e.g. the Data Protection Act 1998).

In general, Section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 provides that where information is otherwise available (whether for a fee or not) then that information is absolutely exempt from the Act.

Any conflict between the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 results in personal data access requests being exempt from the disclosure provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.  Similarly, personal data requests from an individual who is not the data subject (under the terms of the Data Protection Act 1998) are not allowed under the terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 in that they would infringe the data protection principles outlined in the earlier Act.

Further information can be found at the Scottish Executive web site.