PAISLEY HOUSING ASSOCIATION GUIDE TO INFORMATION
LAST REVIEWED: May 2024
Background
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) requires that all housing associations/co-operatives in Scotland must produce and maintain a publication scheme. This must detail all of the key information that we publish and how you can access it. This Guide to Information is our publication scheme, and contains links to where you can find all of the information listed online.
Paisley Housing Association has adopted the Scottish Information Commissioner’s (SIC) Model Publication Scheme (MPS), and this Guide has been approved by the SIC.
At a glance – terms used in this document
|
Term Used |
Explanation |
|
FOISA |
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 Places a duty on those organisations covered to proactively publish certain types of information; and to respond to requests for information; and to provide advice and assistance to those making requests for information. |
|
EIRs |
Environmental Information Regulations (Scotland) 2004 Those organisations covered by EIRs have a duty to respond to requests for environmental information |
|
SIC |
The Scottish Information Commissioner Who is responsible for ensuring that those bodies covered by FOISA and EIRs comply with the terms of the legislation. |
|
MPS |
Model Publication Scheme Produced by the SIC – this details all of the information that those subject to FOISA should publish (if they hold it) |
|
Guide to Information |
A guide that all organisations subject to FOISA and adopting the MPS must produce to help people access the information it makes available |
|
Classes of Information |
Nine broad categories describing the types of information authorities should publish (if they hold it). |
Formats other than online
All of the information listed is available on our website (unless stated), and completely free to access online. However, we understand that not everyone will have online access and where this is the case you can contact us to view this in our office (where this would be convenient).
If you would like a printed copy of any of the information listed, unfortunately we may have to charge a small fee to provide this. This fee will never exceed the cost of photocopying and postage – and we will let you know any total cost before we forward this to you.
Our charges for providing any information detailed in this guide are summarised below:
|
Format |
Charge |
|
Online |
Free |
|
View at our office |
Free |
|
Print in black and white |
10p per A4 sheet, A3 20p per sheet |
|
Print in colour |
20p per A4 sheet, A3 40p per sheet |
|
CD Rom |
£0.50 per CD ROM |
|
Posted document/CD Rom |
Postage costs may be recharged at the rate we paid to send the information to you. Our charge is for sending information by Royal Mail Ist Class. |
When providing copies of pre-printed publications, we will charge no more than the cost per copy of the total print run.
We do not pass on any other costs to you in relation to our published information. Charges for information which is not available under the scheme:If you submit a request to us for information which is not available in this Guide the charges will be based on the following calculations:
General information requests
- There will be no charge for information requests which cost us £100 or less to process
- Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you may be asked to pay 10% ofthe cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50 calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500
- We are not obliged to respond to requests which will cost us over £600 to process
- In calculating any fee, staff time will be calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour
- We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the information requested,nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you
- In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge (a fees notice) and how it has been calculated. You will have three months from the date of issue of the fees notice in which to decide whether to pay the charge. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you.
If you would like to request information that we publish in a format other than online, or arrange a visit to our office to view information, please contact:
Email: dpo@paisleyha.org.uk
Phone: 0141 889 7105
Information that we cannot publish
Whilst we will try to make all of the information we have detailed available, in rare cases there may be some information that we cannot make available. For example, sometimes if we were to publish certain board minutes, it could reveal personal details about an individual. This would be a breach of Data Protection legislation if we were to do so. When this is the case, we will remove any personal details before publication and highlight where and why we have done so.
For how long will information be published?
We aim, where possible, to publish information for at least the current and previous two financial years. When we review any document – e.g. our policies – to avoid confusion we will only publish the current version once it has been updated.
Copyright and re-use
Where we hold the copyright on our published information, the information may be copied or reproduced without formal permission, provided that:
- It is copied accurately
- It is not used in a misleading context
- The source of the material is identified
Contact us
If you have any queries about anything contained within this Guide to Information, or if there is some information that you cannot find that you would like to access, please contact:
DPO, Paisley Housing Association, 2 Lawn Street, Paisley, PA1 1HA
Email: dpo@paisleyha.org.uk
Phone: 0141 889 7105
The Information that we make available to you
Under the MPS, the information we provide must be listed under certain “classes” of information. These are the categories of information that are detailed below. As FOI applies to other bodies and sectors across Scotland – such as Scottish Government and Councils for example –this means that not all of the categories in the MPS apply to housing associations/co-operatives.*
The details of all the information we hold under each of the classes that apply to our organisation, and hyperlinks to access this information when available online, are outlined below.