Freedom of Information
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you
the right to ask in writing for any information held by any public
authority.
Public authorities must respond promptly to
information requests and at the most within 20 days. This 20 day
time limit does not apply while we wait for your response to our
request to clarify the information you want when reasonably we are
unsure of it. Once you have submitted a request if you have not
received a response within the 20 day timeframe please contact
freedomofinformation@bedford.gov.uk
The Freedom of Information Act does allow us to refuse to give you
information where it must not or should not be made public. For
example, we may be prevented by other legal provisions from
providing it or it may include personal information that should be
kept private. The Act also allows us to refuse information where
the cost of supplying it is excessive. Where we are unable to
supply information to you we will always give you a full
explanation of the reasons.
You have the right to ask for a review if you are unhappy in any
way with the response we give or the way we respond. We will
arrange for an independent review of the decision through our
internal review procedure. If you are still unhappy with our
response to your information request after going through our
internal review procedure you can appeal to the “Information
Commission.” They will review our decision including the way we
have responded and can order the council to let you have the
information. You (or the Council) can appeal against the
Information Commission’s decision to the Information Tribunal.
Please
click here to download the FOI Complaints Procedure
If you are still unhappy after the internal review, you can
complain to the Information
Commissioner, who oversees public authorities’ performance
under the act. The Information Commissioner will decide if
your request has been dealt with properly.
We can only charge a fee if we estimate the cost of providing the
information will be more than £450. We can then refuse to
answer on cost grounds, charge up to the full cost or answer it for
free.
To request a copy of environmental information under the
Environmental Information Regulations please see further
information on our Environmental
Information Regulations page
Section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires
every public authority to adopt and maintain a Publication Scheme
which has been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office
and to publish information in accordance with that scheme.
Please have a look at the Publication Scheme should you wish to
request information as details regarding the information you
require (or weblinks to that information) may be listed
there. You may also wish to view the Freedom of Information
Disclosure Log which details requests and responses sent for the
last two years.
Please click here
to view the Disclosure Log
Please click here to download the Freedom of
Information Publication Scheme
To comment on the Publication Scheme, please click here and
complete the online form.
Although information requests (Freedom of Information or
Environmental Information) can be sent to any council department,
it would help us and avoid any uncertainty if you sent your request
indicating the service you want a response from.
By letter to the following address:
Records Access
Bedford Borough Council
2nd Floor, Riverside Building
Borough Hall
Cauldwell St
Bedford
MK42 9AP
Email us at: freedomofinformation@bedford.gov.uk
Or by completing the following form
If you experience problems with accessing any of the information
linking from the Freedom of Information Publication Scheme,
please email freedomofinformation@bedford.gov.uk
For information regarding Re-Use
of Public Sector Information please access these Guidance
notes
Please use Bedford
Borough Council's Disclosure Log to view directory of
Freedom of Information/ Environmental Information Regulation
Requests received.
Freedom of Information/Environmental Information
Regulation requests received:
In the financial year 2016/17 Bedford Borough Council;
received 1645 requests.
99.4% of those requests were responded to within the statutory
limits.
The average time taken to respond to those requests was 11
days.
Please visit our Disclosure Log at
this link.
Would you please send any enquiries in the first instance to the
Freedom of Information Officer at freedomofinformation@bedford.gov.uk
For
information regarding Data Protection please click
here.
For further information please look at the
following external links:
