Freedom of Information & Environmental Information Regulations
The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) 2004 entitle people to request and receive non-personal information held by public bodies, including local councils.
The aim of the legislation is to increase the transparency of the workings of government departments and public bodies.
Hounslow Council is committed to openness and transparency. We do our best to respond positively and efficiently to all requests for information covered by legislation. We are required to respond to all FOI and EIR requests within 20 days, and where the information you have requested cannot be provided because it is covered by an exemption, we will inform you of this.
We are also trying to reduce the need for Freedom of Information requests by regularly publishing information about the council and the services we provide on our website, please use the search function on the website to see our Publication Scheme page and our Open Data page to try to find the information you require before submitting a request.
Data Protection
If the data you want to receive is the personal information the council holds about you, this will fall under Data Protection law, rather than the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations. This page has more information.