Freedom of Information
Publication Scheme - Part 1
Her Majesty's Courts Service Freedom of Information Publication Scheme
Role of the Her Majesty's Courts Service
Her Majesty's Courts Service (HMCS) is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. The purpose of HMCS is the delivery of justice. The agency is responsible for running the courts and tribunals in England and Wales i.e. Crown, county and magistrates' courts and provides the necessary services to the judiciary and court users to ensure its impartial and efficient operation. As the key service-delivery arm of the Department, HMCS plays an important part in implementing the Secretary of State's agenda for a modern justice system.
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI)(the Act) establishes a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities: sets out exemptions from that right; and places a number of obligations on public authorities. The Act, applies to a huge number of authorities, including Government Departments. Under the Act, you are entitled to make a request for information held by Her Majesty's Courts Service (unless the information falls under one of the specific exemptions in the Act):
a) to be informed in writing by HMCS whether it holds information of the description specified in your request and
b) if that is the case, to have that information communicated to you.
All requests must be dealt with promptly and within 20 working days. The Act also provides for an appeal mechanism whereby you may apply to the Information Commissioner, for a decision as to whether we dealt with the specified request in accordance with the Act. In most cases we will not charge a fee for processing Freedom of Information requests.
Applicants who may experience difficulty with communicating in writing, may have their requests dealt with over the phone. A note of your request will be taken and read back to you, to confirm that the request has been correctly captured.
Publication Scheme
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 all public authorities are obliged to adopt and maintain a Publication Scheme, specifying -
What classes of information they will publish, or intend to publish;
the manner in which the information is, or is intended to be published; and
whether the material is, or isn't intended to be made available to the public free of charge or on payment.
The purpose of the Publication Scheme is to ensure that large amounts of information is readily available to members of the public i.e. without the need for specific consideration under the FOI Act and to inform the public of the extent of the material that is available. By readily available we mean the information is available from the HMCS website; may be purchased from Her Majesty's Stationery Office(HMSO); may be obtained from a public library; or will be supplied on request.
Part 2 sets out the classes of information, which HMCS publishes, or intends to publish, the format in which the information is available and whether the information is available, free of charge, or on payment.
Relationship with the Information Assets Register
You may also access information about HMCS, via the Information Assets Register (IAR). The IAR details Government information assets, which can be used under license. The IAR focuses primarily on unpublished data holdings and therefore provides a guide to the unpublished information resources held by Departments. The IAR can help to identify what information a Department holds; how useful that information is; and how to access it. For further information about Information Assets Register and the links to Publication Schemes, see HMSO guidance note 18 which can be viewed on HMSO's web site.
Each Department is responsible for creating its records within its own Departmental Information Asset Register. These are then submitted to the Central IAR HMSO. The Central IAR covers all Government Departments and other crown bodies and can be found on the HMSO 's web site.
Responsibility for the Publication Scheme
The Service Policy Director, Family and Civil, has overall responsibility for HMCS Publication Scheme. The person responsible for maintaining the HMCS Publication Scheme is:
Mossan Hassan
Ministry of Justice
Access Rights Unit
1st Floor
Clive House
70 Petty France
London SW1H 9HD
Publication Scheme: Contacting the Department
If you wish to obtain a hard copy of any of the publications, contained within the Publication Scheme, please write to or telephone HMCS, who will forward it to the appropriate business area:
HM Courts Service Customer Service Unit
6th Floor
Clive House
70 Petty France
London SW1H 9HD
Tel: 020 7189 2000
Or Email: customerservicecshq@hmcourts-service.gsi.gov.uk
Charging for publications
Part 2 may indicate for each class, whether the class includes chargeable information or not. One of the following categories may be applicable:
a) Free of charge on website (i.e. there is no charge by us, but the user would of course have to meet any charges by their internet service provider, personal printing, costs etc.) for those without Internet access a single print on the website would be available by post, at the above contact address. However, requests for multiple print outs, or for print outs or for archived copies of documents which are no longer available on the web, may attract a charge for the cost of retrieval, photocopying, postage etc. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
b) Free of charge hard copies. A leaflet, booklet, or print out from HMCS Intranet. A single copy would be available by post at the above contact address. However, requests for multiple print outs may attract a charge for the cost of retrieval, photocopying, postage etc. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
c) Free of charge to view at local office or court, but charge for photocopying. We would let you know the relevant charge at the time of your request and this would be payable in advance;
d) Information available via a website, but a charge may have to be paid before the main part of the information could be accessed. This may apply e.g. where the website is used to deliver a value added customer service, particularly where the data is also available to private sector users who provide their own value added service. Where this applies, the reason for the charge and the length of charge will be advertised;
e) Chargeable payable publications e.g. "glossy" or other paper bound copies or in some cases a CDROM, video or other mediums are chargeable.
Copyright
The Ministry of Justice is a crown body and the information we produce is subject to crown copyright, which is administered by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO). The material listed in this Publication Scheme, is crown copyright unless otherwise stated. The copyright in some of the material, which may be found in this Publication Scheme, has been waived, meaning that you can re-produce this material freely. Categories of material for which copyright has been waived include:
Government press notices; legislation and explanatory notes on the legislation; ministerial speeches; consultation documents featured on official web sites (except where expressly indicated otherwise); headline statistics; and un published public records. More details of these and other categories can be found at:
http://www.HMSO.Gov.UK/guides.htm
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/index.htm
For other types of material, however, the supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright. For example by making multiple copies, publishing, and issuing copies to the public. Brief extracts of any of the material included in this Publication Scheme, may be reproduced under the Fair dealings provisions of the Copyright, designs and Patents Act 1988 Sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes; private study; criticism review; and news reporting.
Details of the arrangements for re-using crown copyright material can be found on HMSO's web site at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm or by contacting Her Majesty's Stationery Office at:
Her Majesty's Stationery Office
Licensing Division
St Clements House
2 - 16 Colegate
NORWICH NR3 1PQ
Tel: 01603 621000
Fax: 01603 723000
Mail to: HMSO Licensing Organisation
Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by the crown should be sought from the copyright holders concerned. If in doubt, users should contact Her Majesty's Stationery Office in the first instance.
Request for information under the Environmental Information Regulation (EIR)
If you wish to make a request for information under the Environmental Information Regulation (EIR) please write to:
Mossan Hassan
Ministry of Justice
Access Rights Unit
1st Floor
Clive House
70 Petty France
LONDON SW1H 9HD
Requests for personal information: The Data Protection Act 1998
You have a statutory right of access (certain exceptions apply) to personal data about yourself. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 (copies of the Data Protection Act 1998 are obtainable from Her Majesty's Stationery Office). The right of access here is to personal data held on computer or on structured manual files and you are entitled to be informed on any personal data concerning yourself being held by the "Data Controller" the Ministry of Justice and if so,
to be given a description of the data in question
to be told for what purposes the data is processed
to be told of the recipients or classes of recipients to whom the data are, or maybe disclosed.
You are also entitled to be given a copy of the information of any unintelligible terms explained and to be given any information available to HM Courts Service as to the source of the data. The Freedom of Information Act extends this right to personal data held on any type of file.
If you wish to apply for access to your personal data known as a "subject access" You should write to the Departmental Data Protection Compliance Officer at: Ministry of Justice, 1st Floor, Clive House, 70 Petty France, London SW1H 9HD.
The requests for access to personal data must be dealt with promptly and in any event within 40 days of receipt of sufficient information as to be able to trace the data requested. We may charge a fee, not exceeding £10.00. If you consider that a request by you for access to your personal data was not dealt with in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 you may take action as follows:
a) You may apply to the court alleging the failure to comply with the "subject access" provisions of the 1998 Act. The court may make an act or an order requiring compliance with those provisions and may also award compensation for any damage you have suffered and any associated distress;
b) You may write to the Information Commissioner, who may do one of the following:
(i) make an assessment as to whether it is likely, or unlikely that the Department has complied with the 1998 Act;
(ii) issue enforcement proceedings. If he\she is satisfied that the Department has contravened one of the Data Protection principles;
(iii) recommend that you apply to the court alleging a failure to comply with the subject access provisions of the 1998 Act.
Comments and complaints about the Publication Scheme
If you have any comments about our Publication Scheme, or if you think we have not supplied information in accordance with our scheme, then you should write, in the first instance to:
Mossan Hassan
Ministry of Justice
Access Rights Unit
1st Floor
Clive House
70 Petty France
LONDON SW1H 9HD
If after the investigations of your complaint you remain dissatisfied then you may ask for the matter to be internally reviewed. If you are still dissatisfied then you may refer your complaint to the Information Commissioner. We aim to deal with the investigation of complaints within 20 working days and we aim to complete internal reviews also within 20 working days.
Review of the Publication Scheme
We will review our Publication Scheme, in April 2006 and annually thereafter.