Foi help

[CandOdad]

I have put in an foi and had a reply stating that emails are not subject to and for and given a copy of their policy which basically says I can only receive public information.

How do I reply to this?

Are you sure the organisation is subject to FOI act?

Yes, it's a school (sorry I should have said) just to clarify further I'm not asking for stuff covered by safeguarding or staffing issues either.

This might help ico.org.uk/for-the-public/schools/official-info/ , assuming it's a publicly funded school.

It depends specifically on the content of the emails and who they were sent from and to. Loosely, if there is personal information re medical info, wages etc in them then you're unlikely to get them.

Either way, you should go through their appeals procedure and if that doesn't work, you go to the information commissioner who will arbitrate.

If the emails are about you or your child they should be supplied under the Data Protection Act. You don't need to issue a separate request for this - guidance to schools is that if you make an FoI request for personal information they should treat it as a DPA subject access request.

As TracyBarlow says, if the emails contain personal information about other individuals or are subject to any of the other exemptions in the FoI Act you won't get them. However they are wrong to say you can only receive public information and that emails are exempt. If that was true there would be no need for an FoI Act.

Thanks for the help.