FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 – CONFIDENTIALITY OF CONSULTATIONS
The Department will publish a summary of responses following completion of the consultation process. Your response, and all other responses to the consultation, may be disclosed on request. The Department can only refuse to disclose information in exceptional circumstances. Before you submit your response, please read the paragraphs below on the confidentiality of consultations and they will give you guidance on the legal position about any information given by you in response to this consultation.
The Freedom of Information Act gives the public a right of access to any information held by a public authority, namely, the Department in this case. This right of access to information includes information provided in response to a consultation. The Department cannot automatically consider as confidential information supplied to it in response to a consultation. However, it does have the responsibility to decide whether any information provided by you in response to this consultation, including information about your identity (personal data), should be made public or withheld from release under relevant exemption.
This means that information provided by you in response to the consultation is unlikely to be treated as confidential, except in very particular circumstances. The Freedom of Information Code of Practice and good practice established from the implementation of the FOI Act provides that:
- the Department should only accept information from third parties in confidence if it is necessary to obtain that information in connection with the exercise of any of the Department’s functions and it would not otherwise be provided;
- the Department should not agree to hold information received from third parties “in confidence” which is not confidential in nature; and
- acceptance by the Department of confidentiality provisions must be for good reasons, capable of being justified to the Information Commissioner.
For further information about confidentiality of responses please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (or see website at: http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/).