How does the duty arise?
Section 11 of FOIA deals with how you provide information to a requester (or “applicant”) in response to a request. It applies to the information that you’re going to release. It does not apply to any information that is exempt from disclosure. Therefore, before applying section 11, you should treat it as a normal FOIA request and decide whether any information is exempt.
The dataset provisions added a new subsection 11(1A) after subsection 11(1):
(1A) Where—
(a) an applicant makes a request for information to a public authority in respect of information that is, or forms part of, a dataset held by the public authority, and
(b) on making the request for information, the applicant expresses a preference for communication by means of the provision to the applicant of a copy of the information in electronic form,the public authority must, so far as reasonably practicable, provide the information to the applicant in an electronic form which is capable of re-use.
These provisions are about the duty to provide a dataset in a re-usable form in response to a request. The requester doesn’t have to specify that they want a re-usable dataset. If the information they want happens to be in a dataset (as defined in the provisions) and they say they want to receive the information electronically, then you have a duty to provide the dataset in a re-usable form. If the requester has asked to receive the information in hard copy, then there’s no duty to provide it in an electronic form capable of re-use.
If the requester submits their request electronically, eg by email, you should treat this as them expressing a preference to receive the information in electronic form (unless they specifically ask for a hard copy). You should not try to avoid the duty to provide a dataset in a re-usable form just because the requester does not specifically ask for a copy of the information in electronic form.
If the requester asks for information that forms part of a dataset, then you have a duty to provide that information in a re-usable form. So, if the requester asks for just part of a dataset, you do not need to provide the whole dataset. You only need to provide the requested information. However, depending on the circumstances, it may be easier or more helpful to provide the whole dataset, provided the other information is not exempt.
To comply with section 11(1A), it’s important to understand certain key terms, in particular what is meant by:
- a dataset;
- an electronic form which is capable of re-use; and
- so far as reasonably practicable.