Freedom of Information

• The Freedom of Information Act 2000
• Staff Guidance
• Publication Scheme
• Wholly Owned Companies

Wholly Owned Companies

The University has six 100% wholly owned companies. Under the Freedom of Information Act these companies must also produce their own Publication Schemes. We have developed Bespoke Schemes for each of the companies, and have deposited these with the Office of the Information Commissioner. These schemes have been approved by the Office of the Information Commissioner.

Minutes and papers of the Board meetings for the active wholly owned companies are judged not to be appropriate for inclusion in this Publication Scheme.
This is because their content is deemed to contain exempt information under Section 43 (commercial interests) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and that the commercial confidentiality of the information outweighs the public interest test that must be applied, taking into account allowing public access to information and reasons for decisions made by the companies.
Other exempt information, as detailed in Sections 21 to 44 (inclusive) of the FOIA 2000, may also be included within the minutes and papers.
(The dormant companies do not produce any formal minutes or papers.)

From 1st January 2005 The University of Sheffield and the active wholly owned companies will consider requests for Board minutes and papers to be made available under Section 1 of the FOIA 2000 in the context of applying the public interest test and whether content is deemed to be exempt information as referred to in Sections 21 to 44 (inclusive) of the FOIA 2000. In particular it will be considered whether the content is exempt information under Section 38 (health and safety), whether content is exempt under Section 40 (personal information), whether content is exempt under Section 41(Information provided in confidence) and whether content is exempt information under Section 43 (commercial interests).

email : Contact the FOI Unit