Freedom of Information
From 11th November 2019 the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 come into force with regard to Scottish Housing Associations and Co-operatives. Freedom of Information allows anyone the right to access to a range of information the Association holds with regard to for example how we make decisions or financial information about the Association.
Publication Scheme
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act) requires Scottish public authorities to adopt and maintain a publication scheme which has the approval of the Scottish Information Commissioner, and publish information in accordance with that scheme.
Authorities are under a legal obligation to:
- publish the classes of information that the authority makes routinely available, and;
- tell the public how to access the information and whether information is available free of charge or on payment.
Alongside the Act, the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) provide a separate right of access to the environmental information that we hold.
Southside Housing Association has adopted the Model Publication Scheme 2018, produced and approved by the Scottish Information Commissioner. Our Management Committee approved the adoption of this Model Publication Scheme in October 2019
The Scheme can also be viewed in Publication Scheme Resources at the Scottish Information Commissioner website.
The scheme set out our commitment to make certain classes of information routinely available, such as policies and procedures, minutes of meetings, annual reports and financial information. We have developed a Guide to Information for this purpose and this also contains details of the environmental information that we routinely make available.
The Association has also produced our own Guide to Information which sets out information about who we are and what we do, and provides signposts to where we proactively publish information under the classes of information sets out in the Model Publication Scheme.
How to Make a Request
Anyone can make a request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. You can make your request in writing, by email or by any other method that is recorded.
If you wish to make a request for information or if you require any advice or assistance in relation to Freedom of Information or the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 please contact us at the address below:
Corporate Compliance Officer
Southside Housing Association,
Southside House 135 Fifty Pitches Road
Glasgow
G51 4EB
Phone: 0141 422 1112
Email: csd@southside-ha.co.uk
You can request a broad range of information that we may hold in recorded form, that could be statistical information about volumes of complaints, details of our new build developments, information about decisions that we have made or how we have spent money, if you ask us and provided that there are no reasons within FOISA not to release the information, we will provide you with what we can. It might be worth checking our website before you make your request as we publish a lot of information proactively to this website.
It's really straightforward to make a request, however we do require you to make your request in a recordable format e.g. via an email or letter, FOISA sets out that you can't make a request verbally. Also, for a request to be valid we need you to provide your full name in the text of your request or for you to be clearly identifiable from your email address. If you use a false name we may not respond and the Scottish Information Commisioner may conslude that your request was not valid.
In the overwhelming majority of instances you won't have to pay, we will provide the information that we hold free of charge to you. If a request is particularly complex however, and responding to the request may involve a cost to the Association in terms of time, resources etc. then we may impose a charge. Anything up to £100 is provided to you free of charge, if dealing with a request costs the Association between £100 and £600 then we can charge you 10% of the difference between those figures (so. a maximum charge of £50). If dealing with a request will cost the Association over £600 we can refuse your request or ask you to modify or focus the information you are looking for. Thats why it always helps to be really focussed and specific about what information you are looking for in terms of scope, timescales and other factors.
We will try to respond to your request as soon as we can but certainly no later than 20 working days from the day after we receive your request. When we calculate 'working days' this means we don't count Saturdays or Sundays or bank holidays. You should also bear in mind that if we if we ask for clarification from you about your request, or request a payment for the information you have requested we will stop the clock on your request until you have provided us with the clarification we are looking for.
There is a different statutory information access route when you are requesting your own personal data. This is called a Data Subject Access Request and your data subject access rights are enshrined in the Data Protection Act 2018. When you request your own personal data under FOISA we will apply an Exemption and we will issue a refusal notice under Section 16 of FOISA. We will then process your request in a different way, as a Data Subject Access Request.
Withholding Information
Under Freedom of Information legislation, information may be withheld if there is a good reason for doing so. If we withhold information, we will let you know why. If you are unhappy with our decision, or with the way we have dealt with your request, you can ask us to review our decision. If you do not agree with the outcome of the review, you can ask the Scottish Information Commissioner to investigate.
