Information about FOI requests
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 members of the public have a right to any information referred to in the Council's publication scheme that the Council has produced or published.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 means that the public have a general right to access all the information held by the Council unless the information falls within one of a number of limited exceptions.
There is no charge for FOI responses, unless the cost of processing the request is likely to total more than £450. If this is the case, the applicant will be advised and given the choice of restating their request or paying an agreed amount, based upon an hourly rate of £25 per hour.
There is some information that is exempt from an FOI request:
1. Information which is prohibited from disclosure by law
2. Information intended for future publication
3. Information which may be prejudicial to the economic or financial interests of any administration in the UK
4. Investigations and proceedings carried out by public authorities
5. Law enforcement
6. Audit
7. Information prejudicial to the conduct of public affairs
8. Information that would be likely to endanger the physical or mental health or safety of any individual
9. Legal professional privilege
10. Information which if disclosed would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person including the public authority holding it.
For more information, visit Information Commissioners Office.
View previous FOI requests
You can view past FOI requests made to this Council (or any other public body) by visiting What Do They Know, however this only refers to requests made using the What Do They Know website.
To view past FOI requests made directly to this Council, you can check the disclosure log by visiting FOI publication scheme.
The Council is committed to the Government’s Local Transparency Agenda and providing openness and transparency to the residents of Brentwood and has published its data on DataShare and from February 2021 the data is available at Transparency documents.
Make a FOI request
Please Note: If you need more information about Highways, Schools and Education or Social Care, you should make your request to Essex County Council.
To make an FOI request, complete our online form: