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Oneof 2  
#1 Posted : 28 November 2014 09:30:34(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Oneof 2

Hi Over here in Jersey a Freedom of Information Law is about to come into force. I'm interested to know how this has affected other public sector safety managers. For example what sorts of requests have you had, if any? How has it affected your record keeping and retention schedules? Hopefully not too heavy a question for a Friday! Cheers
bob youel  
#2 Posted : 29 November 2014 09:11:46(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
bob youel

Have had EVERY of question and demand that U can imagine from all sorts of people and many from people looking to have your business secrets so as they can compete Some requests take a little time and effort to respond to whilst others take lots of time and money to manage and has become a new business section such as H&S, HR, production etc. in my opinion U need to be fully aware of the wording of the law and what is allowed/not allowed to be able to manage it Best of luck
kenty  
#3 Posted : 02 December 2014 16:36:28(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
kenty

HSE have some interesting examples of FOI requests made of them, and also publish their retention schedules. http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/disclosure-log.htm Failing that, there is always google.
mylesfrancis  
#4 Posted : 03 December 2014 09:42:28(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
mylesfrancis

An FOI law shouldn't have any effect on record keeping and retention schedules, unless there is something specific in that legislation which requires this. I suspect that sort of thing is covered under your data protection legislation, i.e. you only keep what is necessary, for as long as is necessary, and get rid of it when it is no longer necessary! HSE gets a huge raft of requests on a daily basis covering pretty much everything you can imagine from information on visits to specific companies, details of investigations, general policy queries, expenses records etc etc. To get an idea of the sort of requests made, I'd suggest taking a look at the "What do they know" website as this is a portal through which FOI queries can be raised and answered.
BJC  
#5 Posted : 03 December 2014 10:28:39(UTC)
Rank: Guest
Guest

FOI was a great piece of legislation if the ICO had been given more funding to actually enforce it.
jwk  
#6 Posted : 03 December 2014 13:48:40(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
jwk

Hi Oneof2, something to be aware of maybe is that it doesn't just impact on public bodies; we have had FOI requests as a contracted supplier of public services, John
johnmurray  
#7 Posted : 05 December 2014 07:09:41(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
johnmurray

Don't worry about it. Even if you are a "public body", you can stonewall requests for many years. And if you are not a "public body", you can just refuse the request and let the requester go the long route to get access. As a last resort you can just destroy the information. https://ico.org.uk/for_o...dom-of-information-act-4
walker  
#8 Posted : 05 December 2014 09:59:03(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
walker

JohnMurray wrote:
Don't worry about it. Even if you are a "public body", you can stonewall requests for many years. And if you are not a "public body", you can just refuse the request and let the requester go the long route to get access. As a last resort you can just destroy the information. https://ico.org.uk/for_o...dom-of-information-act-4
Cynical ..........but true
A Kurdziel  
#9 Posted : 05 December 2014 14:17:32(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

We have always responded to FOI requests in an appropriate but robust way ie we follow the rules but don’t get them anymore than they are entitled to. So the information must something they can’t find just by looking at a website or other open available source. It must not cost us a stupid amount of money to ascertain- we won’t send one of our staff to spend a day and half looking through old records to find out how much our Christmas tree cost in 1996. And the information must not be confidential eg about individual staff or commercial work activities.
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