Southwark Council publication scheme

The Southwark Council publication scheme is a guide to the information that Southwark Council routinely publishes or intends to publish routinely. The council is committed to a policy of open access to information under the scheme.

Please take a look at the guide to the Southwark Council publication scheme before making a freedom of information request, to see whether the information required is included. If the information you wish to see is not included in the scheme you are still able to make a request under general right of access.

The term 'publication' is not limited to information contained in a bound or printed form, ie a brochure or a book.

It includes many different ways of producing information. Web based information is just as much part of the publication scheme as a mass produced leaflet.

Some information is held in public registers and is not held in a form suitable for publication in the normal sense and in these cases the information is available in specified locations for public inspection.

A key requirement of the scheme is that it identifies the classes of information that Southwark Council will publish. In devising classes of information, we considered

• the types of information that are frequently requested
• the council's structure
• the council's powers and duties

We have not replicated the council's departmental structure and instead have grouped information by council functions.

We aim to make searching through the types of information as easy as possible for you and by grouping it together irrespective of council departments, you can see the full range of publicly available information.

The strategic director of legal and democratic services, as the monitoring officer, has overall responsibility for the publication scheme on behalf of the local authority.

The governance team that sits in the legal and democratic services department has responsibility for maintaining Southwark's publication scheme on a regular basis and will review and update the scheme as material becomes available.

Using the publication scheme

You can look for information by referring to classes and then browse the sub classes that are of interest to you to see what information is available.

Please see the publication scheme to view the classes.

Publication scheme charges

Accessing the publication scheme is free of charge for material held in electronic format.

Alternatively, you can request a copy of the material by post. There will be a charge of 10p per A4 page and 20p per A3 page in addition to any costs incurred for postage.

Where other charges apply, eg for official publications, the charge will be clearly stated next to the information in question.

How long is the publication scheme information available for?

Information on the publication scheme will continue to be available until it has been superseded.

All information is held for as long as stipulated in the Southwark retention schedule, including publication scheme material. Publication scheme material, current or archive will be available for as long as it is due to be retained.