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What is Freedom of Information?

These pages explain what your rights will be under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. They will also explain how the act will affect your research into the archives. There are separate pages for records managers and archivists.

The Freedom of Information Act was passed in November 2000 and will come fully into effect from January 2005. FOI gives people a right of access to information held by public bodies. The range of public bodies covered by FOI is very wide, ranging from central government departments to individual schools and parish councils. A full list of the bodies affected can be found in Schedule 1 of the Act. A separate Act covers public authorities in Scotland – the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Anyone, anywhere in the world, will be able to send a written request for information (a letter, fax or email) to an FOI authority. The FOI authority will have to say whether it holds the information, and if it does, provide it. The rights of access will be overridden only by exemptions set out in the Act.

The rights of access will apply to information in The National Archives' own records about its operations and to all the information held in the archives received from other government departments. FOI will change how records are released, and how we respond to enquiries about the archives.

There will be separate Environmental Information Regulations giving similar rights of access to environmental information.

Those disappointed with the response to their enquiry will be able to complain to the Information Commissioner, the independent regulator of the Act. There will be a further right of appeal to an Information Tribunal.

The new statutory right of access will come into force in January 2005. Until then, access to information in the archives will still be provided through the Public Records Act, and access to information about The National Archives will be provided through the non-statutory Open Government Code of Practice on Access to Government Information.

Some elements of the FOI Act are already in place, including our Publication Schemes.