How to make a Freedom of Information request

Before making your request

We already make a lot of information available to you. Before you request information from us, please try these three steps:

• Search our website for the information;
• Check our Publication Scheme;
• Find out if we have already released the information in our Disclosure Logs.

How to make your request

The easiest way to make a request is to use our Online Request Form.

Alternatively, you can:

• Write at us at Freedom of Information, North West Leicestershire District Council, PO Box 11051, Coalville, LE67 0FW. 
• Or you can email your request to foi@nwleicestershire.gov.uk.

Making your request

For a Freedom of Information request to be valid it must:

• It must be in writing.
• State a name and address for correspondence.
• Describe the information requested.

Our advice:

Be specific

• You will get the information faster if you help us identify the exact information you require. It will also mean that your request is less likely to be turned down on cost grounds.
• Make sure that you provide us with a narrow, tightly focused request and give, where appropriate, a relevant time-frame, for example, 1999 to 2000 or January to April 1985.

Tell us how you want the information

• Tell us how you would you like the information provided to you, for example, by post or email, or let us know if you would prefer to come in to visit us to view it in person. We will try to meet your preference whenever we can.

Provide your contact details

• It would helpful if you could tell us how you would prefer us to contact you if we need to do so. We may have to get in touch to discuss your request.

When we receive your request

We aim to reply to you promptly and are obliged under the law to provide a response within 20 working days.

Under the FOIA any person making a request for information is entitled to:

• Receive confirmation as to whether such information exists and is held by the Council, and;
• Have that information communicated to them except where the requested information falls under one of the relevant exemptions.

When an exemption is given we let you know which exemption applies and, in most cases, why the information cannot be released.

The Council also has a duty to determine whether the release of the information is in the public interest, despite any exemptions applied to it. All FOI requests are therefore dealt with on a threefold analysis.

1. Whether the Authority can identify the information requested.
2. Whether there is an exemption within the FOIA which prevents the information from being released.
3. Whether, despite the exemption, it is in the public interest to release the information requested.

Taking the above analysis into account the Authority will then deal with your request for information.