As a result of the Publication Scheme Development and Maintenance Initiative the ICO has introduced a model publication scheme that all public sector organisations should adopt from 1 January 2009.
The model scheme is now available in both English and Welsh.
Authorities must produce a guide to the specific information they hold and which is contained within any of the scheme’s seven classes. We expect authorities to ensure that the information can be easily identified and accessed by the general public.
The ICO will regularly review the model scheme and guidance documents. Authorities should commit to reviewing and updating their information guide and its contents on a regular basis.
We have also produced a series of definition documents for the main public sectors. These documents identify the type of information we would expect to be included in each class.
Notes for authorities that are merging/undergoing boundary changes on 1 April 2009
The Model Publication Scheme
Guidance
Definition documents
Central Government
Northern Ireland
Wales
Local Government
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eg fire and rescue authorities, passenger transport authorities, waste disposal authorities, port health authorities, where established as a joint or combined authority.
Health
Education
Police
Template guides to information
For some smaller authorities, the ICO is providing a template ‘guide to information’ rather than a definition document. This is a downloadable guide which can be printed off, completed and used without further modification.
Schools
Template guide to information for schools:
Click here for guidance on how to complete the guide to information for schools.
Parish councils, parish meetings and community councils
The ICO has created a leaflet for parish councils and parish meetings, titled 'The new model publication scheme - what you need to know':
Template guide to information for parish and town councils:
Template guide to information for parish meetings:
Template guide to information for community and town councils in Wales:
Click here for guidance on how to complete the guide to information for parish councils, parish meetings, community councils and town councils.
General Practitioners
Dentists
Opticians
Pharmacists
Can’t find your sector specific definition document or template guide to information?
The ICO has now published a sector specific definition document for most public authorities. These documents accompany the new model publication scheme and are a guide to the types of information we expect authorities to proactively publish.
There may be organisations specified in Schedule 1 of the FoIA, eg Advisory NDPBs, who feel their role is too specialised to adopt the Non Departmental Public Bodies definition document. Although we recommend this as a starting point the ICO will welcome any suggestions on refining this definition document to make it more appropriate to these bodies.
The Initiative
The initiative ran throughout 2007 and concluded with the production of the model scheme and accompanying guidance.
The aim of the initiative was to encourage greater openness and transparency, to increase awareness and expand and improve proactive dissemination. At the same time the ICO sought to minimise the amount of resource public authorities need to develop, maintain and adopt a scheme and streamline the adoption process.
A series of sector based workshops took place in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with over 200 FoI practitioners attending. We also received responses from over 60 separate public authorities from government departments to parish councils. Their comments and observations and our own good practice approach have enabled us to develop and approve a model publication scheme which all public authorities can adopt.
Are you ready?
In May 2008 the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, wrote to all senior members of public authorities urging them to adopt the ICO’s new model publication scheme.
View the Information Commissioner's letter to public authorities and supporting 'FOI is changing – are you ready?' flyer here.
Authorities merging or undergoing boundary changes
We have received numerous enquiries from authorities that are merging/undergoing boundary changes on 1 April 2009 regarding whether they need to adopt the new scheme. We would expect the existing bodies to comply with legal requirements by adopting and operating in accordance with the approved model publication scheme from 1 January 2009.
The new model scheme covers all public authorities therefore any new bodies formed from mergers post January 2009 will adopt the same scheme they had previously adopted as separate bodies. However, the new authority will need to reconcile the directories of information in order to operate the scheme.
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