Freedom of information

View our Freedom of Information Policy and Procedure here

NSCD is a public body for the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We are accountable to the public, and we try to make our actions as transparent as possible. Members of the public can check that our efforts are undertaken to the public benefit.

Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), in most cases, we must confirm whether or not we hold a specific piece of information, and if asked, make it available to the public. There are a number of exemptions to the FOIA which allow us to withhold information if it is not appropriate to release it, however, we will always act in the public interest.

Please note: from September 2023 under exemption S43, NSCD does not have the capacity to respond to FOI requests asking about our goods and services where it is seen your commercial interest is to use this information to sell us products or services. We ask that these types of requests are made through other channels of communication and not the banner of an FOI request. As such these requests will not be responded to but will be logged as an exemption S43

We must respond to you within 20 working days of receipt of your request in order to comply with the requirements of the act.

MAKING A FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

NSCD is committed to promoting an understanding of its ethos, values and activities, and so far as is possible and permitted under law, it will provide members of the public with any information it holds.

On the rare occasion that it is appropriate to make a request for information held by NSCD please email: foi@nscd.ac.uk

TIPS FOR MAKING SUCCESSFUL REQUESTS

• Please be clear about what information you require. We will not start locating information until we believe that this information has been asked for clearly and that we understand your request. Please note that any resource given to this clarification will be included in the request processing time.
• Please remember that we can only provide information or data that we hold – there is no obligation under the act for us to create new data or make comments.
• You may want to search our previous FOI disclosure logs and other Published Information to see if the answers you are looking for are already immediately available to you.