Managing FOI

To find out more, view our FOI law section. 

Understand your responsibilities under the Scottish Ministers' Codes of Practice on:

• the discharge of functions under FOI law (the 'Section 60 Code'), and
• records management (the 'section 61 Code').

For example:

• A senior member of staff should have strategic responsibility and be accountable for the management of the FOI function
• Senior managers should be responsible and accountable for establishing and applying FOI procedures and staff training
• Policies should make clear who is responsible for each function, including responding to requests, meeting the publication duty, and reporting on performance
• Key staff should be given enough authority to resolve any issues and disagreements within the authority

Existing practices can often be adapted to meet FOI duties. Rather than starting from scratch it's often more efficient to review and update your practices to meet FOI duties.

Set up policies and procedures to meet the three duties under FOI law: 

• The duty to publish information
• The duty to respond to requests
• The duty to advise and assist 

Make sure these are compliant with the Scottish Ministers' Code of Practice on Records Management. You will need to be able to identify, locate and retrieve requested information quickly to meet the FOI timescales. Remember also to keep records about the requests you handle: you'll need these in the event of an appeal.

For example:

• Not every staff member has to be an expert in FOI, but everyone should be trained to recognise an information request, and should know what to do with it
• Key staff with responsibility for FOI should have the skills, knowledge and authority to carry out their role
• Key staff need support from colleagues to cover absences - whether planned or unplanned - and those colleagues need to know what to do
• Public-facing staff must be able to give advice on how to make an information request to the organisation, or how to access published information
• Staff who carry out FOI and EIR reviews need appropriate skills and knowledge, as well as enough authority to overturn original decisions
• Make FOI awareness part of your staff induction, and give regular refresher FOI training to all staff

This is essential to help you meet the 20 working day timescale. You can use a simple spreadsheet, or amend an existing case management system to do this.

This data will help you monitor the number of requests you receive and the outcome of requests. The Commissioner also asks authorities to submit FOI data to a statistics portal every quarter, so you need to make sure you can capture this information.

We recommend you set internal targets for responding to requests, monitor them, and report them regularly to senior managers. Senior staff need this information to review performance, respond to any lessons learned and identify efficiencies.