Freedom Of Information
This page contains details of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
This legislation came into effect on 1 January 2005 and embraces all information held by public bodies. The intention is that any information on any subject held by a public body should be made available to the general public.
Right of Access to this information is given in the Freedom of Information Act and includes a right to be told if the information exists, as well as the right to receive it, subject to certain limitations (exempt information).
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the Council is required to produce a 'publications scheme', which must set out the different classes of information that it publishes and also how access to that information may be obtained.
Freedom of information - publication scheme (PDF Document, 72.95 Kb)
If you wish to know about information held regarding your self, this will be dealt with under the Data Protection Act. For further details about this and how to make such a request, please contact the data protection officer whose contact details are shown at the left of this page.
Requests for details under the Freedom of Information provision must be made in writing, addressed to the Data Protection Officer, Legal and Licensing Section, which includes letter, fax or email. You may wish to make your enquiry by using our on-line form. There is also a form provided at the Customer Services desk of the main Council Offices.
When we receive your request, we must respond within 20 working days. You will be informed if we hold the information and if there is a charge for supplying it. This depends on how you wish the Council to provide the information requested.
If you are denied access to information, for example if it falls within the exempt categories, or if you are unhappy with the information supplied, you may make a complaint to the Council's using the contact details on the left.
Related Documents (1)
Frequently Asked Questions (1)
The National Fraud Initiative is a data matching exercise. This is a two yearly exercise which is organised and supervised by the Audit Commission and is governed by the requirements of the Audit Commission Act 1988. The National Fraud Initiative was started by central Government in 1996 and Oadby and Wigston Borough Council has participated in this bi-annual exercise since then.
Under the act, Oadby and Wigston Borough Council is required as a public body to share its data relating to employees, councillors and customers with the Audit Commission. This data will then be compared to other records sent to the Audit Commission by other government bodies such as local authorities, police authorities, government departments and the National Health Service.
The purpose of the National Fraud Initiative exercise is to identify where data held by one government body is different to information held by another public body, for example where wage payments to local government employees have not been declared on state benefit claims. As a result of National Fraud Initiative work £450m of fraud has been detected.
Our participation in the National Fraud Initiative means that information about you will be shared with the Audit Commission for the purposes of data matching. The law requires that we release this information and it does not require your consent.
However, numerous safeguards are taken to protect your personal data and these are set out in the Audit Commission's 'code of data matching practice' . Furthermore, the National Fraud Initiative ensures full compliance with all data protection and human rights legislation.
Last updated: Wednesday, 15 June 2011 4:37 pm
