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Culture, learning, assurance

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You should promote awareness of FOIA internally to all staff for compliance and reputational reasons. This should include an awareness of when your organisation receives commercially sensitive information and how you receive this information. The scope of your searches should include information held physically by your organisation or held on its behalf by another organisation, such as a supplier or contractor. Read “the more information” section to give you a further understanding of each question.

 

Good

  • You have a culture of openness and transparency, with excellent awareness of your obligations under FOIA across the organisation.
  • You regularly review section 43 training requirements and keep staff up-to-date with changes to ICO guidance, relevant decision notices and Tribunal cases.
  • You regularly monitor how section 43 is applied, to ensure evidence-based decisions.
  • You usually identify and share lessons to be learned, assisting in the appropriate and objective use of section 43.

Adequate

  • You try to have a culture of openness and transparency, with good awareness of your obligations under FOIA across the organisation.
  • You sometimes review section 43 training requirements and keep staff kept up-to-date with changes to ICO guidance, relevant decision notices and Tribunal cases.
  • You sometimes monitor how section 43 is applied.
  • You sometimes identify and share lessons to be learned from section 43 responses.

Unsatisfactory

  • You do not have a culture of openness and transparency, and awareness of your obligations under FOIA across the organisation is low.
  • You rarely review section 43 training requirements or keep staff up-to-date with changes to ICO guidance, relevant decision notices and Tribunal cases.
  • You rarely monitor how section 43 is applied.
  • You rarely identify and share lessons to be learned around the use of section 43.

 

More information

You should promote awareness of FOIA internally to all staff for compliance and reputational reasons. This should include an awareness of when your organisation receives commercially sensitive information and how you receive this information, and whether the information is held physically by your organisation or by another organisation, such as a supplier or contractor, on your behalf.

More information

Staff need to be equipped to ensure that section 43 is not over- or under-used. You should keep training, policies and procedures up-to-date, and ensure all relevant staff have access to them. You should also regularly check ICO decision notices which consider section 43, since this may inform your handling of future cases.

More information

Monitoring your use of section 43, and when it's been upheld by the ICO, should help you follow the correct approach and apply it confidently going forward. You shouldn't apply it as a blanket approach to every request for information relating to your organisation's commercial interests, but neither should you under-use it. Regular monitoring should help you to apply section 43 appropriately and on the basis of evidence.

More information

Reflecting on your previous handing of requests where section 43 was applied should help you to assess when to apply it appropriately and objectively, and to cite it confidently in future.