FOI and EIR
Anyone can ask. Twenty working days to answer.
Scottish registered social landlords have answered freedom of information requests since November 2019. Anyone can ask: tenants, journalists, councillors, campaigners, competitors. English and Welsh associations are outside FOI, but the Environmental Information Regulations reach them when they act in a public capacity on environmental matters, and nobody tells you in advance which requests those are.
Scotland: FOISA
Twenty working days. The Scottish Information Commissioner as regulator, with a quarterly statistical return on every request received, closed and answered in time. A publication scheme adopted from the Commissioner's model. Reviews and appeals that are public. Most Scottish associations handle this inside existing roles, which is exactly why a vacancy or a cluster of requests turns into a backlog.
England and Wales: EIR
The Regulations apply to bodies carrying out public administrative functions on environmental matters. Damp, asbestos, estate works, energy performance, planning. Whether a given association is caught depends on the function, not the organisation, and the test has been litigated. The practical risk is a request that is treated as a complaint or ignored, and only recognised as an EIR request when the complaint reaches the ICO.
How we handle it
Recognise
Requests are typed on arrival. FOI, EIR, subject access or STAIRs, each with its own clock and its own exemption set. A request for environmental information gets the EIR clock, whatever the sender called it.
Register and report
Every request is on the register with received, due and closed dates. For Scottish associations, the quarterly return to the Commissioner is produced from the register, not rebuilt from a spreadsheet.
Search and estimate
The search is logged. Where the cost limit applies, the estimate and its basis are recorded on the case.
Review and respond
Exemptions and exceptions are applied item by item with a reason. The response and the evidence pack go out together, so a review or an appeal starts from a complete file.
What you get
Every request recognised for what it is, answered inside its own deadline, with a return to the regulator that comes straight off the register.