In this section I am going to be talking about the freedom of information act. This act allows people to find out any public information within the public authority. All that is required is for you to send a request, detailing your name, address and the information you want, to the public authority that you think holds the information. The public authority has 20 working days to comply with your request.

 

One of the biggest benefits of this act is that information that was not previously made available is now available. It now means that public authorities can not hide information from those who it concerns. However, not all information has to be passed to you.  Some information may be deemed exempt for different reasons (for example, security). Also, a public authority can also deny the request if the cost of collating the information exceeds an appropriate limit.