What is the Freedom of Information Act?
The purpose of the Act is to make information held by public bodies more accessible and to promote openness and transparency in the way they conduct their business.
The main features are:
The Freedom of Information Act gives a general right of access to recorded information held by public authorities. You are entitled to be told whether or not we hold the information and, if we do, to have it communicated to you. There are certain exceptions to the right of access. For example, we may not comply with your request when:
- An exemption applies
- The request is vexatious or repeated.
- The cost to us of complying with the request exceeds the appropriate limit of £450 – this equates to 18 man hours spent on locating and extracting the information.
The general right of access takes no account of any connection between the applicant and the information he or she is requesting. This means that any personal connection between you and the information you request will be entirely irrelevant to the question whether the information should be disclosed under the Act. For example, your entitlement to see the contents of a police complaint investigation in which you are involved will be no different to that of any other member of the public seeking the same information. This is because information which is accessible to one applicant under the Freedom of Information Act is deemed to be available to ‘the world at large’.
Exemptions from the right of access:
The Act contains several exemptions. For example, you may not be allowed to see personal information about other persons, and your own personal information can only be released to you under the Data Protection Act, please see our
Data Protection brochure. In some instances, information which is exempt under the Act can be withheld only when the balance of the public interest does not favour disclosure.
Click here for more information on how to request Information
Click here for more information on where to send your request
Click here to find out what you can expect from the IPCC when you make a request
Click here for more information on how to appeal against the non-disclosure of information
The IPCC Information Charter
Our information charter sets out the standards that you can expect from the IPCC when we request or hold personal information about you, how you can get access to your personal data and what you can do if you think standards are not being met.
Click here to download the the IPCC information charter.
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