There have been a number of updates recently of interest to finance staff. An outline is provided here.
The Scottish Information Commissioner has shared some initial statistics on Freedom of Information requests in the sector between 11 November and 31 Dec 2019. There were a total of 204 requests, with more details outlined below.
SFHA has submitted a brief response to the Scottish Government's consultation considering further extension of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).
We recently surveyed members about communications with the Scottish Information Commissioner relating to subsidiaries. Many thanks to all of those who responded, and we have since met with the Scottish Information Commissioner and written to Scottish Government regarding the application of the act to care subsidiaries in particular.
Scottish Government is consulting on potential further extension of FOI to other bodies. Whilst this consultation is not directly about our sector and is extremely broad, the consultation paper makes reference to care and potentially extending to bodies who are contracted by public bodies.
Template FOI Documentation and Guidance Notes are now available to all SFHA members.
In early August, we shared with members our Open All Hours publication, that provided a template guide to information to aid with meeting the publication requirement under FOI. We are pleased to announce that we have formed a partnership with TC Young to provide further guidance and services in relation to FOI and data protection.
In 2016, SFHA and GWSF jointly commissioned Open All Hours – A Model Publication Framework for Housing Associations and Co-operatives. The guidance was developed to provide guidance and recommendations about the range of information that should be readily available to tenants, customers and members of the public – especially through publication on websites. An update to this guidance, reflecting the publication requirements under Freedom of Information legislation is now available to all SFHA and GWSF members.
One year on from Freedom of Information legislation being extended to RSLs, the SFHA is pleased to announce that the free helpline provided exclusively to our members by TC Young will continue to be available for the coming year. SFHA will be holding an event in January with TC Young to talk about lessons learned from the first year.
Webinars in this series with be led by TC Young.
Blog by Lorna Wilson, SFHA Head of Policy and Innovation
Update on Data Protection and FOI and; GDPR and Covid-19: Sharing Personal Information
The effect of the 2002 act’s extended coverage is that registered social landlords which fall under the definition in the Housing (Scotland) 2010 act will therefore no longer be engaged in ‘regulated lobbying’ for the purposes of the Lobbying (Scotland) Act 2016.
When Freedom of Information “goes live” for RSLs on 11 November, this will bring with it the requirement to employ a Data Protection Officer (DPO) under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). SFHA is aware that this requirement has been causing members some concern, particularly for smaller organisations with limited resources. As there are limitations on who can carry out the role – such as it can never be the Chief Executive – this has left some of our members feeling like they have no one internal who can carry out the role. SFHA has negotiated three packages of support at heavily discounted rates for SFHA members. As different members will have different needs, we recognised it was important to ensure different options were available.
An update to guidance reflecting requirements under Freedom of Information legislation is now available to all SFHA and GWSF members.
Governance Conference
