Freedom of Information

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 any person can make a request for information about AccessNI - there are no restrictions on your age, nationality, or where you live.

Requests should be made to :

Freedom of Information Team
Northern Ireland Office
11 Millbank
London
SW1P 4PN

Please ensure you include:

your name
an address where you can be contacted
a description of the information that you want

You don't have to mention the Freedom of Information Act, but there is no reason not to if you want to.

You should try to describe the information you want in as much detail as possible - for example "minutes of the meeting where the decision to do X was made", rather than "everything you have about X". This will help us find the information you need.

The FOI team will try to comply with each request promptly, and should respond within 20 working days (around a month). If more time is required, the FOI team will make contact and advise when an answer may be available, or why more time may be needed.

What you can ask for

You can ask for any information at all - but some information might be withheld to protect various interests which are allowed for by the Act. If this is the case, you will be told that information has been withheld and why.

If you ask for information about yourself, then your request will be handled under the Data Protection Act instead of the Freedom of Information Act.

You have slightly different rights to this information, different fees apply and public authorities have longer to respond to these requests.