The
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the 2002 Act)
comes into full force on 1 January 2005. The Act aims to increase
openness and accountability in government and across the public
sector by ensuring that people have the right to access information
held by Scottish public authorities (including the Registers
of Scotland). People will be able to see and question how
such bodies function and how decisions are made.
The Act will be enforced by the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner is a fully independent public official and
has a wide variety of powers under the Act to ensure compliance.
His duties and legal powers should ensure that people get
the information to which they are entitled. He has a number
of responsibilities which include: dealing with complaints,
promoting good practice to authorities, informing the public
about the Act and enforcing the Act.
Click
here for further information about the Scottish
Information Commissioner and Freedom of Information.
The
Scottish Executive played a key role in the development of
Freedom of Information. Click
here for further details.
The
Registers of Scotland (RoS) offers a publication scheme in
order to set out the classes of information which RoS publishes
or intends to publish. Along with other Scottish public authorities,
RoS is under a statutory duty (Section 23 of the 2002 Act)
to adopt and maintain such a scheme. View
RoS Freedom of Information Publication
Scheme
