What rights do I have in relation to the Act?

The Freedom of Information Act gives everyone two specific separate rights:

• The right to know whether information exists.

• The right to ask for access to information.

Public authorities will normally have a maxium of twenty working days to respond to the request; however, there are circumstances when this time limit can be extended.

Section 84 of the Act defines information as ‘information recorded in any form’, this includes:

• any paper or electronic documentation and

• information held by public authorities regardless of when that information was created or how long it has been held by the public authority.