The Freedom of Information Act gives everyone the right to ask public authorities for information. If the authority holds that information, in most cases, they must provide it. FOI can be an invaluable tool for gathering data to support your campaigns or advocacy.
If you don’t know where to start, try WhatDoTheyKnow.com, a free service from mySociety which makes it very simple to send an FOI request. mySociety have also released three online masterclasses to help organisations understand how they can use FOI to best effect – find these athttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMbWpADzhTC4D7–ATudG_maMa2rxGWnx.
Written summaries of the masterclasses can be found athttps://www.mysociety.org/tag/foi-for-campaigning-and-advocacy/.
