The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has created an upstream regulation team and a suite of products to help public bodies comply with freedom of information (FoI) law.
The new team has been set up to promote good practice and the ICO is looking at the results of external research to finalise its goals and work programme.
Upstream regulation manager Deborah Clark said in a blogpost: “In order to provide the best support we can, our team has been establishing exactly what public authorities want help with and what they think that support should look like. To do this, we have commissioned independent external research and ran a survey with public bodies at the end of last year.
“As well as looking externally, we are using insight and evidence from our own casework and stakeholder engagement to identify where support is needed.”
Toolkit and template
The suite of products includes an FoI self-assessment toolkit, key questions to ask, a template action plan, a guide to consulting internally on FoI requests, training videos and a publication schemes report.
Clark said this will help public bodies comply with information access legislation.
“And we’ll build on that support in the coming months,” she added. “That in turn will build trust and confidence in those responsible for making public information available.”
