Before you submit an information request
You may save time for yourself and resources for us if you check the following before you submit an information request.
If the information is published on our website and you are unsure where to find it, please use the search function. Click the magnifying glass icon at the top of the page anywhere on the website or use this link to search the website.
Our Media centre page has useful information about the Lake District National Park and Lake District National Park Authority, including facts and figures.
We will provide links to often-requested information on our Information and data page.
It’s not uncommon for us to receive requests for information we don’t have, but which may be available from the unitary authorities in the area (Westmorland and Furness Council and Cumberland Council) or elsewhere.
Again, we will provide links to often-requested information on our Information and data page.
Formal information requests and the laws
If your request concerns your personal data and how we use it, the request will not be processed as a Freedom of Information request under the FOIA or an Environmental Information request under the EIR, but as a Subject Access Request (SAR) under the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (UK GDPR).
If you want to submit a SAR, please see our Privacy and cookie notice.
If you submit a formal information request that contains other people’s personal data, the request will be processed under the FOIA (or the EIR, if the requested information is related to environmental matters).
However, we are not allowed to disclose other people’s personal data if doing so would violate their rights and freedoms under the UK GDPR. Therefore, other people’s personal data will usually be redacted in our response.
If your request is about environmental information, we must process it in compliance with the EIR. The information is environmental if it falls under one of these categories:
- The states of the elements of the environment.
- Factors affecting or likely to affect the elements of the environment.
- Measures and activities affecting or likely to affect the elements and factors above.
- Reports on the implementation of environmental legislation.
- Cost-benefit or other analyses and assumptions used within the framework of the measures and activities above.
- The state of human health and safety.
The elements of the environment include, for instance: air and atmosphere, water, soil, land, landscape and natural sites, including wetlands, coastal and marine areas, biological diversity and its components, including genetically modified organisms, and the interaction among these elements.
The state of human health and safety includes, for instance: contamination of the food chain, where relevant, conditions of human life, cultural sites and built structures inasmuch as they are or may be affected by the state of the elements of the environment referred to above or, through those elements, by any of the matters referred to in relation to factors or measures and activities above.
More information can be found on the ICO website.
If we compare the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), there are many similarities between them. However, there are also significant differences, as we will point out later on this page.
No. Let’s say you submit an information request partly about your own personal data, partly about environmental information, and partly about other things. In this case, you might see that different parts of your request are processed under the UK GDPR, the EIR, and the FOIA, respectively.
In our response, we will inform you about which laws the different parts of your request are processed under. Most requests, however, need only be processed under a single law.
No. We have an obligation to process your request under the applicable law, regardless of whether you request otherwise.
For instance, we must:
- process requests about your personal data under the UK GDPR, and
- process requests about environmental information under the EIR,
even if you expressly say you submit a Freedom of Information request.
No. We have not only an obligation to ensure your request is processed under the appropriate law, but also a duty to provide you with necessary advice and assistance (FOIA Section 16, Regulation 9 of the EIR).
Submitting a formal information request
When we refer to a “formal” information request on this page, we mean a request processed in compliance with a specific law, usually FOIA or the EIR. A Subject Access Request is also a formal information request and will be processed in compliance with the UK GDPR.
This, in contrast to “informal” information requests, where members of the public ask a question that our officers answer straight away or as soon as practicable as a matter of ordinary customer service.
We will consider your request as a formal information request under the following circumstances:
- If you explicitly or implicitly express that you want your information request to be processed formally.
- If any legislation says that we must process the request formally.
- If we anticipate that any complications may arise from processing your request or disclosing the requested information to you. For instance, under the following circumstances, we may decide to process your request formally to protect the interests of you, the LDNPA, or third parties:
- If it is impossible to identify the requested information from the way the request is phrased, and we need clarification to proceed.
- If the scope of your request is so large that we cannot respond to the request within reasonable time limits, or we cannot respond at all.
- If disclosure of the requested information may violate other people’s or our interests.
Not always. Most information requests are uncomplicated. A member of the public has a question. An LDNPA staff member knows the answer, sees no problems with disclosing the information, and can reply more or less immediately.
When this is the case, the most effective way to get the information you need is to just ask.
On the other hand, if you ask for a formal processing of our request, our Legal Team needs to be involved to monitor and document the process and ensure compliance with the FOIA or EIR. Communication will involve formal acknowledgement and response letters instead of a quick reply. All of this takes more time and resources than just answering your question would require.
It may be to your advantage to submit a formal information request if you anticipate complications with getting your questions answered. With a formal request, you will ensure you receive access to all information the law in question requires us to disclose to you.
However, for most information requests, you will not gain any advantage from submitting a formal request. The formalities will only add overhead to processing your request. In the worst case, this will make processing take longer and divert our resources from delivering other services to members of the public.
Certain limits are described in both the FOIA (Section 12(1), “the appropriate limit”) and the EIR (Regulation 12(4)(b), “the request is manifestly unreasonable”).
For requests to be processed under the FOIA, the “appropriate limit” for complying with information requests is 18 work hours for local authorities.
There is no specified fixed limit for “reasonableness” for requests to be processed under the EIR. However, case law has concluded that a request for environmental information may be considered unreasonable if it imposes a disproportionate burden on the authority.
The LDNPA is a small public authority with limited staff resources. If we estimate that an information request to be processed under the FOIA or EIR does impose a disproportionate burden on our staff and trigger the FOIA Section 12(1) or Regulation 12(4)(b), we will refuse to process the request.
In most such cases, our decision reflects that diverting staff resources to process your information request is less in the public interest than identifying, extracting, and disclosing the information.
It is, therefore, in your interest to request the information you actually need, and not large amounts of other information just because it is possible to request it.
If you are in doubt about whether your information request may trigger FOIA Section 12(1) or Regulation 12(4)(b), please ask us. We are obliged to offer you reasonable advice and assistance, if possible, to make your request processable.
The FOIA and EIR are there to ensure that members of the public have access to information held by public authorities. This is an important pillar of an open and democratic society. However, it’s not the intention of FOIA and EIR to be used as tools for harassment and bullying of public authority staff or others.
We are, of course, entirely aware that Freedom of Information and Environmental Information requests sometimes are raised out of frustration. It is natural and expected that this may happen, and it will not influence our processing of your request.
However, as in all other circumstances, there is a limit to acceptable language and behaviour. In the worst case, abusive information requests may qualify as “vexatious” (FOIA Section 14(1)) or trigger Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR (“manifestly unreasonable”). We will refuse your request in such cases.
It is, therefore, in both your and our interest to keep communication civil and to the point when submitting and processing an information request.
For Freedom of Information requests to be processed under the FOIA, we may refuse to process your request if we have previously provided the requested information to you, and there has not been a reasonable time interval since the previous request (FOIA Section 14(2)).
What a “reasonable interval” is will depend on the nature of the requested information (static/dynamic?), the likelihood of information change, the purpose of the request (is it reasonably justified?), and the burden placed on the Authority.
For Environmental Information requests to be processed under EIR, repeated requests may trigger Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR (“manifestly unreasonable”).
For Freedom of Information requests to be processed under the FOIA, the following are the necessary requirements for the request you submit:
1. It must be in writing
In addition to other written messages, electronic messages, such as emails, will qualify as “in writing”.
2. You must state your name
This must be a real name. We may refuse to process your request if the submitted name is obviously false or a pseudonym.
3. You must submit an address for correspondence
An email address is sufficient, or a postal address if you prefer traditional communication.
4. You must describe the information requested
The description must be precise enough for us to identify and locate the information you ask for.
For an Environmental Information request to be processed under the EIR, there are no formal requirements for format (it doesn’t necessarily need to be in writing) or name and address (but we must be able to communicate with you to respond).
However, the request must still describe the requested information precisely enough for us to identify and locate it. If we cannot identify the information you are requesting, we will ask you for clarification. Be aware that further processing of your request and the countdown to the statutory deadline for responding will be suspended while we await your clarification (FOIA Section 1(3); Regulation 9(2) of the EIR)
We will offer advice and assistance (FOIA Section 16; Regulation 9 of the EIR) if you have difficulties describing the information requested.
We recommend that you use one of the following methods to submit a Freedom of Information or Environmental Information request.
Use the contact form on our website
Go to the Contact us page.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you will find the contact form.
Choose General enquiry, enter your details, and write your information request in the field Your message.
Send us an email
Please use the email address hq@lakedistrict.gov.uk
Write to us
Please use this address:
Lake District National Park Authority
Wayfaring House
Murley Moss Business Park
Oxenholme Road
Kendal
LA9 7RL
For all ways of contacting us
You can include the phrases “Freedom of Information request” or “Environmental Information request” (or something similar) if you want to explicitly state that you want your request to be processed formally.
Our processing of formal information requests
Yes, except in some cases where your communication with us has started as something else and evolved into a formal information request. This may mean that our receipt of your request has been implicitly acknowledged in the ongoing communication.
Normal acknowledgement of your request will occur as soon as it has been forwarded to our Legal Team and registered as a formal information request. An acknowledgement email will normally be sent within a week of the day we receive your request, and will contain:
- A calculated deadline for our response.
- A reference number to be used in all future correspondence about the request.
If our acknowledgement of your request is delayed for any reason, it will not affect the calculated deadline for our response.
Both FOI and EIR requests must be responded to as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after we receive your request.
The normal 20 working days deadline is calculated in this way:
- If we do not receive your request on a working day (for instance, if it arrives on a Saturday or a bank holiday), the next working day is considered the day of receipt.
- When we count 20 working days after the day of receipt, bank holidays anywhere in the UK are not counted.
If we must ask you to clarify your request to identify the information you are seeking, the countdown to the response deadline will pause until sufficient clarification is provided.
In rare cases, it may be necessary to extend the deadline:
For Freedom of Information requests, the FOIA only allows a reasonable extension of the deadline if we determine that the request triggers certain exemptions (reasons we should withhold some or all of the requested information), and extra time is needed to perform a mandatory public interest test to document that it is more in the public interest to withhold the information than to disclose it (FOIA Section 10(3)).
For Environmental Information requests, the EIR allows an extension of the deadline from 20 to 40 working days if the request is complex and/or voluminous and it is impracticable to finish processing it within 20 working days (Regulation 7 of the EIR).
We will notify you about any necessary extensions of the deadline as soon as possible, and no later than 20 working days after receipt of the request.
Both the FOIA and the EIR ensure the right of members of the public to access information “held” by public authorities (FOIA Section 1; Regulation 5 of the EIR).
This means information held by the authority at the time the request was received (FOIA Section 1(4)). The EIR is applied uniformly, even though it does not explicitly specify the time at which the request was received as a “cut-off”. This means that information that the authority changed, received, or produced after the day we received your request usually falls outside the scope of our response.
It is at least theoretically possible that information may be changed or deleted between the time we receive your request and the time we produce our response. Please be aware that this is not a breach of the FOIA or the EIR, provided that the change or deletion would have been made regardless of your request.
However, it is a criminal offence to alter, delete, or conceal information after your request has been submitted if this is done with the intent to prevent disclosure (FOIA Section 77, Regulation 19 of the EIR).
Information is held by the public authority if it is retained for the purposes of the public authority’s business. Personal information or trade union information, for example, is usually not considered held, even though the EIR does not expressly exclude information held solely on behalf of another person or body.
The ICO’s guidelines clarify that the information held must be recorded. This means that the information must exist as physical or electronic documents or registers. Knowledge existing only in the heads of staff members is not considered information held.
The Authority has no obligation to create information to respond to your request. This means, for instance, that we will extract existing information from a database if it falls within the scope of your request, but we are not compelled by law to write a new report for the sake of the response or to ask staff what they remember and produce new documents from their recollections.
In most cases, we disclose the information requesters ask for.
If we refuse an information request, it’s often because the scope of it is so big that it triggers FOIA Section 12(1) or Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR. See the section “Can you ask for any amount of information?” above.
Apart from this, we will sometimes withhold information because the request (or parts of it) triggers exemptions in the FOIA or exceptions in the EIR. These are legal reasons why we should or must withhold the requested information.
Our most frequently (but still rarely) used FOIA exemptions:
- The information you request is reasonably accessible to you by other means (FOIA Section 21(1)).
- The information may be used to commit crimes if we disclose it (FOIA Section 31(1)(a)).
- The information may harm our or others’ commercial interests if disclosed (FOIA Section 43(2)).
Even more infrequently, we might withhold information based on other FOIA exemptions or the exceptions described in Regulation 12 of the EIR. There is generally a higher threshold for withholding information when a request is processed under the EIR than under FOIA.
The majority of FOIA exemptions and all EIR exceptions are qualified exemptions/exceptions, which means we must perform a public-interest test if we need to withhold information. The public interest test provides documentation that we have considered that the public interest of withholding the information is higher than the public interest of disclosing it.
We usually don’t charge fees for providing the information you request.
The FOIA doesn’t allow us to demand fees for the staff hours spent identifying, extracting, and making information available. The EIR does. However, as a small public authority, the main problem with an extraordinarily large information request is finding sufficient staff to handle it. Charging fees will not necessarily solve this problem.
It is, therefore, more probable that we will refuse to process extraordinarily big information requests based on FOIA Section 12(1) or Regulation 12(4)(b) of the EIR. See the section “Can you ask for any amount of information?” above.
If we, in rare circumstances, decide to charge fees for processing an information request under the EIR, the fee will be £25 per hour of officer time, plus any costs of transferring the information to you (for instance, photocopying, printing, and postage). Photocopying charges are 10p per sheet, and postage costs will be based on 2nd-class post.
This in compliance with Regulation 8 of the EIR.
If this situation arises, we will give you the opportunity to refine your request to minimise the charges. We will notify you that advance payment is required, and the processing of your request will not proceed unless the charge is paid no later than 60 working days after the notification.
Large-print, Braille and audio tape versions of information can be made available by arrangement and will incur no additional charges.
After you have received our response
You have the right to request an internal review if you are dissatisfied, for any reason, with how we processed your request. If, after this, you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner’s Office for a decision.
Internal review
Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the receipt of our response letter. The internal review request should be addressed to:
Julie Wood
Authority Solicitor
Lake District National Park Authority
Wayfaring House
Murley Moss Business Park
Oxenholme Road
Kendal
LA9 7RL
Or on email: Julie.Wood@lakedistrict.gov.uk
The Information Commissioner
On the Information Commissioner’s Office website
Or:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
