A Guide to Information 

Terms used in this document

Background

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) requires that all housing associations/co-operatives in Scotland must produce and maintain a publication scheme.   This must detail all of the key information that we publish and how you can access it.   This Guide to Information is our publication scheme, and contains links to where you can find all of the information listed online.

Spire View Housing Association has adopted the Scottish Information Commissioner’s (SIC) Model Publication Scheme (MPS), and this Guide has been approved by the SIC. 

Formats other than online 

All of the information listed is available on our website (unless stated), and completely free to access online.    However, we understand that not everyone will have online access and where this is the case you can contact us to view this in our office (where this would be convenient).

If you would like a printed copy of any of the information listed, unfortunately we may have to charge a small fee to provide this.   This fee will never exceed the cost of photocopying and postage – and we will let you know any total cost before we forward this to you.   

Our charges for providing any information detailed in this guide are summarised below:

If you would like to request information that we publish in a format other than online, or arrange a visit to our office to view information, please contact:

Gillian Spence, Corporate Governance Manager on 0141 559 5644 or email gillianspence@spireview.org.uk  

Charges for Information which is not available under the scheme

If you submit a request to us for information which is not available in this Guide, the charges will be based on the following calculations: 

General information requests  

• There will be no charge for information requests which cost us £100 or less to process  
• Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you may be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50 calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500 
• We are not obliged to respond to requests which will cost us over £600 to process 
• In calculating any fee, staff time will be calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour 
• We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you 
• In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge (a fees notice) and how it has been calculated. You will have three months from the date of issue of the fees notice in which to decide whether to pay the charge. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you. 

Charges for Environmental Information: Environmental information is provided under the EIRs rather than FOISA.  

The rules for charging for environmental information are slightly different.  

We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the environmental information requested or deciding whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you e.g. photocopying and postage. 

If we decide to impose a charge, we will issue you with notification of the charge and how it has been calculated. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. 

If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you. Charges are calculated based on the actual cost to Spire View Housing Association of providing the information:

• Photocopying is charged at 4p per A4 sheet for black and white copying, 4p per A4 sheet for colour copying. 
• Postage is charged at actual rate for Royal Mail First Class. 
• Staff time is calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour. 

The first £100 worth of information will be provided to you without charge. 

Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide, you will be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50, calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500.  

Where it would cost more than £600 to provide the information to you, however, we will ask you to pay the full cost of providing the information, with no waiver for any portion of the cost.

Charges for requesting for your own personal data 

There is no charge for requesting your own personal data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Subject Access Request. We must provide a copy of the information free of charge. 

However, we can charge a ‘reasonable fee’ when a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive. We may also charge a reasonable fee to comply with requests for further copies of the same information. This does not mean that we can charge for all subsequent access requests. The fee must be based on the administrative cost of providing the information. 

Further information on GDPR can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Information that we cannot publish

Whilst we will try to make all of the information we have detailed available, in rare cases there may be some information that we cannot make available. For example, sometimes if we were to publish certain Committee minutes, it could reveal personal details about an individual. This would be a breach of Data Protection legislation if we were to do so. When this is the case, we will remove any personal details before publication and highlight where and why we have done so. 

For how long will information be published?

We aim, where possible, to publish information for at least the current and previous two financial years. When we review any document – e.g. our policies – to avoid confusion we will only publish the current version once it has been updated.   

Copyright and re-use

Where we hold the copyright on our published information, the information may be copied or reproduced without formal permission, provided that:

• It is copied accurately
• It is not used in a misleading context
• The source of the material is identified

Contact us

If you have any queries about anything contained within this Guide to Information, or if there is some information that you cannot find that you would like to access, please contact:

Spire View Housing Association 

43 Tharsis Street

Glasgow 

G21 2JF 

gillianspence@spireview.org.uk

0141 559 4644 

The Information that we make available to you 

Under the MPS, the information we provide must be listed under certain “classes” of information. These are the categories of information that are detailed below.    As FOI applies to other bodies and sectors across Scotland – such as Scottish Government and Councils for example – this means that not all of the categories in the MPS apply to housing associations/co-operatives.    

The details of all the information we hold under each of the classes that apply to our organisation, and hyperlinks to access this information when available online, are outlined below.