FOI Request from University of Winchester

19 April 2016

If your school has received this request you must respond to ensure compliance with the legislation.

FOI Request: Injury Monitoring, Physical Education and School Sport

This is a typical FOI request asking for statistics and policies and it is our opinion that there is no reason to withhold this information from disclosure, unless it would be likely to take the school more than 18 hours to extract and collate the requested information.

The school can refuse to deal with the request or make a charge for the information. If this is the case - please follow the link to the ICO guidance on refusing a request.

When applying the section 12 (cost/time limit) exemption, you must provide advice and guidance, which means you should ask the requestor to refine or narrow their request to come within the time frame, or the school could provide the information it can to come within the 18 hours. The school must issue a refusal notice to the applicant explaining what exemption(s) it was relying upon and why.

When dealing with the request the school must first acknowledge receipt (see following example):

"Thank you for your email.I acknowledge your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Assuming we hold this information, I will endeavour to supply the data to you as soon as possible but no later than xx/xx/xxxx (20 working days from date of receipt).

I will advise you as soon as possible if we do not hold this information or if there are exemptions to be considered and/or any costs for providing the information."

If this request was received by the school on 1st April the school has 20 working days (or school days) from date of receipt in which to respond. However this can be extended to take into account the school Easter break. If the school returns on 11th April, this means you must respond by 9th May at the very latest. This may change according to your school's holiday dates.

Next, the school must review the information requested to see if there are any concerns about releasing it.

To clarify, these are the questions raised:

1. For each of the last three academic years (2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15), what is the total number of sport related accident or injuries, categorized by:

- a) Sport or activity
- b) The skill, technique or action (for example, heading the ball in soccer, a rugby tackle, a forward roll) that caused the injury, categorized by:

  • Unstructured time
  • Curriculum lessons
  • Extracurricular activities (including sports fixtures and organised sporting activities - including sports day)
  • Residential trips
  • Organised activities away from the school site
  • Other school organised activities (such as school fetes).

If you do not hold the information there is no need to create it in order to satisfy this request. If you do hold some or all of this information you must consider disclosure, unless complying with the request would exceed the statutory 18 hour time frame (as referred to above). The time frame is likely to be exceeded if the information is not held in one place, for example, if the information is held on individual pupil files.

If this is the case you could use the following wording:

"We do not record on a central system or database the level of detail requested, therefore without looking at each individual pupils file. I am afraid that we cannot answer question(s) xxxxxx within the appropriate limit of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours at £25 per hour) and are relying on section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to refuse to comply with this element of your request."

2. For each of the last three academic years (2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15), what is the total number of sport related accident/injuries, that have resulted in the injured person being:

  • Admitted to hospital
  • Sent home from school
  • Absent from school for more than 2 hours of lessons
  • Excluded from participation in physical activity for more than one week. (See question 1.)

3. Please could you provide your health and safety, child protection or safeguarding policy, risk assessments for physical education and games activities, first aid and injury reporting or monitoring policies. Provide a link to the school website if this information is published or provide the copies of the requested documents.

4. A list of current staff designated responsibilities for first aid, their subsequent training and role within the school.

Perhaps provide job titles rather than names of those members of staff.

5. A copy of the curriculum for physical education for students in years 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

I presume there are no concerns with providing this information.

The school can only withhold information from disclosure by applying one of the FOI exemptions. There is further information available on the ICO website about FOI exemptions.

Finally, the school must respond to the applicant on or before due date with either:

  • The information requested
  • Advising that the information requested is not held
  • The information is held but is exempt from disclosure.

You must quote the relevant section of the Freedom of Information Act and explain why the public interest is best served by NOT releasing the information.

The response must also include details of what the applicant should do if they are not happy with the information provided (i.e: provide details of the school's complaints process).

The FOIA is applicant and purpose blind, which means it does not matter who is asking for the information or why they need it, this should not influence the way in which the school responds.

This information is provided for advice only. Schools are public bodies in their own right and therefore subject to obligations under FOI. If the school has any concerns about dealing with this request, divulging information or interpreting the exemptions, please contact The Information Resilience & Transparency Team for further guidance at the following email address.

Contact Details

Michelle Hunt
Telephone: 03000 41 62 86
Email: informationgovernance@kent.gov.uk