Equality impact assessment - freedom of information and data protection

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1. What is the name of the policy or service that is being assessed?

There are two services being assessed on this form:

• Freedom of Information procedure
• Data Protection procedure

2. What are the aims of the policy or service? Whose needs is it designed to meet? What are the current priorities?

Both of these are statutory services, and the processes in place reflect the need to comply with the legislative environment that creates and regulates them. As such, there is little flexibility in either service.

The purpose of the Freedom of Information procedure is to ensure that the authority complies with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and provides public information to individuals or bodies requesting information held by Wiltshire Council in a manner that complies with this piece of legislation, and in a way that promotes the council’s own aim of being transparent and accountable. Service users are, potentially, any person or body corporate from any location in the world.

The purpose of the Data Protection procedure is to ensure that the authority complies with the Data Protection Act 1998. Service users will be those about whom the authority holds personal data. In practice, although the Act entrains a wide range of duties and controls, that which has the most direct impact on service users, and consequently requires an EIA, is the part of the Act that allows for data subjects to have access, under certain circumstances, to their personal data. Service users, for these purposes, are data subjects, and could belong to any group of people. The Act defines two types of data – “personal data”, such as name and address, and “sensitive personal data”, which includes information about health, sexuality, race, and religious belief.

3. In what ways might this policy or service affect some groups of people differently? Might some groups find it harder to access the service? Do some groups have particular needs that are not well met by the current policy or service?

The Data Protection Act already requires the authority to ensure that it takes particular steps to protect the confidentiality of sensitive personal data as defined by the Act. The council is compliant with this requirement.

The Freedom of Information Act requires requests for information to be made in writing. This is potentially discriminatory, in that it places a statutory barrier in the way of those who have certain disabilities or who do not communicate easily in English, to access the service. However, if a phone call is received requesting information, information officers will offer to write the request down, and send it to the requested for signature. Within the existing statutory restrictions, this is the easiest “work around” available, and also complies with our duty, under the Act, to provide advices and assistance to those making requests.

The way in which information is then provided in response to subject access requests made under the Data Protection Act or to requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act is set out by the legislation.

4. What evidence do you have for your judgement? Is there evidence of public concern (e.g. complaints)? Have staff raised concerns? Is there local or national research to suggest that there could be a problem?

This is not really applicable, given the heavily statutory nature of the service.

5. Who have you consulted with as part of your assessment? What were the results? Have you published the results of that consultation? If so, where?

Not applicable. Any consultation would take place on a national basis, and is the responsibility of the DCLG or the Information Commissioner.

6. If you have found that the policy or service might have an adverse impact on a particular group of people, can you justify this?

It has not been possible to identify any adverse impact arising specifically from the procedure.

7. If the impact cannot be justified, what do you intend to do about this? Are there changes that you could introduce which would make the policy or service work better for this group of people? Is further research or consultation required?

See above

8. How will you monitor the take-up or impact of the policy or service in future?

Number of requests received. Percentage of requests complied with within statutory timescales. Complaints received about the level of response. Complaints to the Information Commissioner.

9. What actions do you plan to take as a result of this equality impact assessment? Please state any resource implications

None

10. There is a legal requirement to publish the outcomes of Equality Impact Assessments. Please outline how / where this will happen

On the Freedom of Information and Data Protection section of the council’s website.

11. Name of person completing form

Corporate Standards Manager

12. Senior manager approval

Assistant Director - Corporate Services

Date

27 September 2007

Last updated: 13 May 2009