Freedom of Information

Freedom of Information

   

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“Act”) provides a general right of public access to information held by Public Authorities, including South Wales Fire and Rescue Service (“SWFRS”). The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (“Regulations”) provide the public a general right of access to environmental information held by Public Authorities. These general rights of access are subject to some procedural and substantive limitations, for example when information is already available either through this website, or in some other way. The Act and Regulations also impose obligations on Public Authorities to proactively publish certain information about their activities.

The Act and Regulations cover any recorded information that is held by a Public Authority. Recorded information includes printed documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and or video recordings.

The Act and Regulations do not give people access to their own personal data. Individuals have a right of access to personal data about them under the data protection laws and regulations as applicable in the United Kingdom – please see our Privacy Notice for more information.

Access to information under the Act or Regulations does not affect any copyright, database rights, or intellectual property rights that give owners the right to protect their original work against commercial exploitation by others. Please see our Copyright and Re-use of Materials Policy and Guidelines.

 

How to make an information request?

SWFRS publishes a significant amount of information about its performance and finances etc. on this website. It is possible that the information that you may seek may already be published and, before making a request, we ask that you check whether we already publish the information you want on this website. For example, our Publications Library and Our Performance pages.

You can check as to whether we have disclosed the information you are seeking as a result of someone else’s request as we post these within our Disclosure Log that can be found within our Publications Library. Requests are responded to in the language that they were requested. We remove any personal details before publishing a response and we do not publish duplicate or repeat requests. Any information published would have been correct at the time of publication but is not reviewed or updated, as such may not accurately reflect the current situation and should be viewed as a historical record.

If you are looking to request personal data, please see our Privacy Notice for more information.

Incident and Fire Investigation Reports

SWFRS is entitled to charge for certain services by way of Section 18A of the Fire Services Act 2004. SWFRS charges for access to more comprehensive and detailed information regarding incidents that have been attended, as is common practice among fire and rescue services.

As incident information is reasonably accessible by other means, even though it is accessible only on payment, requests for Incident or Fire Investigation Reports under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 will be refused under Section 21 (i.e. information accessible to an applicant by other means), and as this exemption is absolute it is not subject to a public interest test.

This approach to charging by fire and rescue services has been reviewed and approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office as evidenced by Decision Notice FS50859031.

Personal data in Incident and Fire Investigation Reports is often limited and ordinarily relates to any victims that may have been injured at an incident. Normally, we can only disclose information to the occupier of a property, driver of a vehicle or someone operating a business at a premises at the time of an incident. However, we understand that often it is the landlord/letting agent or insurers who will request the report – in those cases, we can release the report, provided we have the consent of those individuals. If there are multiple persons involved with an incident, we require consent from all individuals to release an unredacted version, should it contain their personal data – or another legal basis to disclose their personal data.  This is essential, in order to comply with data protection legislation and to protect unwanted intrusions into people’s privacy.

Under data protection legislation individuals are only entitled to a copy of their own personal data. It does not entitle them to a copy of original documents, or information that does not relate to them as an identified individual.

If you are looking to request an incident or fire investigation report, please see Incident and Fire Investigation Reports for more information.

Under the Freedom of Information Act

If you cannot find what you want on our website, you can submit a request by e-mail or letter to:

In making a request you need to:

  • provide your name and an address for replies; and
  • describe as clearly as possible the information that you are seeking.

It is also helpful if you:

  • label the request as a ‘Freedom of Information Request’; and
  • give a telephone number, in case we need to discuss your request with you.

Please note that a request under the Act must be made in writing to constitute a valid request. Where a verbal request is received from individuals who by reason of disability cannot make a written request, a written note of the request will be sent to the individual and once verified and returned by the individual, will constitute a written and therefore valid request for information. To make a verbal request due to reason of disability, please call 01443232355.

Under the Environmental Information Regulations

A request for information under the Regulations can be made verbally or in writing, however the Regulations state that responses must be made in writing.

If you cannot find what you want on our website, you can submit a request by e-mail or letter to:

To make a verbal request, please call 01443232355.

In making a request you need to:

  • provide your name and an address for replies; and
  • describe as clearly as possible the information that you are seeking.

It is also helpful if you:

  • label the request as a ‘Environmental Information Regulations Request’; and
  • give a telephone number, in case we need to discuss your request with you.

 

How will we manage information requests?

We will provide advice and assistance wherever that would be helpful. We reserve the right to request information of an individual’s identity, where a request is being made under the Act, and seek clarification from an individual where a request is not clear.

We will respond as soon as possible and, in any event, normally within 20 working days, counting the first working day after the request is received as the first day. This time period may be extended by a further 20 working days, for example, where a request is particularly complex in nature. However, should we need to extend the time period within which to comply with a request, we will inform the applicant within 20 working days.

In responding to a request, we will normally tell you whether we hold the information requested and provide you that information. It is important to note however that the general right of access to information under the Act and Regulations is subject to some procedural and substantive limitations. For example, we will normally provide information unless:

  • the information is otherwise reasonably accessible to you, such as on this website.
  • the request is vexatious, repeated or otherwise manifestly unreasonable. We are also not obliged to comply with a request under the Act if extracting the requested information would take more than 18 hours, the cost limited under section 12 of the Act.
  • the information is covered by an absolute exemption under the Act, e.g., disclosure would be against the law. The information is covered by a qualified exemption under the Act or an Exception under the Regulations and, where applicable, we argue that in all the circumstances it is against the public interest to disclose the information. For example, the information requested if disclosed would, or would likely to, endanger the physical or mental health, or the safety of any individual.

If the last judgement is complex, it is likely that we will need to extend the time period in which to comply with your request. If extra time is needed though, we would notify you of this.

We will keep you notified of progress where appropriate and justify any refusal to you.

 

How will we use your Personal Data?

Personal data is any information identifying you or information relating to you that allows us to identify you. This can be either directly or indirectly from that data alone or in combination with other identifiers we possess or can be reasonably accessed. Please see our Privacy Notice for more information.

Our primary purpose for using your personal data when submitting an information request is so that we can process your information request.

In addition, we will use your personal data for secondary reasons such as to co-ordinate your request and even to request advice and support.

For example:

  • We will record the details of your request in our database. This will normally include your name, contact details, and other information you have given us. We will store a copy of the information that falls within the scope of your request. We will also record the types of individuals making request to use by broad category (employee, public, media, research student, etc.) This information helps us to process your request and check on the level of service that we provide. We may also use this information to compile and publish statistics showing information such as the number of requests we receive, but not in a form that identifies anyone.
  • Notifying our Media and Communications Team that you have made a request, particularly if you are a journalist or from a media organisation, so that they are aware of any potential forthcoming news coverage to which they may need to respond. Note that this will not materially affect the information that you receive. We may also notify the Authority, so that they too are aware of any potential forthcoming news coverage to which they may also need to respond.
  • Discussing requests that have been received with other public authorities to seek advice. Although we never deliberately share the identity of applicants in these circumstances, if you have submitted the same request to a number of authorities, your identity may be obvious to those who have received the request.

Our legal basis for processing your information request, and your personal data in this context, is the fulfilment of a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c) of the UK GDPR). In this case the legal obligations contained within the Act and Regulations. If you provide us or we need to process any personal data that is classed as special category data in fulfilling your information request, it would be for reasons of substantial public interest (Article 9(2)(g) of the UK GDPR), namely safeguarding your statutory data rights (Schedule 1 part 2(6) of the Data Protection Act 2018).

In relation to the secondary reasons listed above, the legal basis is processing that is necessary for the performance of a task caried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us.

 

How long do we keep hold of your personal data?

We keep personal data about information requests for as long as we need it to satisfy our service and legal requirements. Once personal data is no longer required, it is either deleted or anonymised.

Please note that all members of SWFRS follow organisation wide information governance and security policies. Only members authorised are provided access to personal data and these members will have agreed to ensure the confidentiality and security of the information.

 

What rights do I have in relation to personal data that you hold about me?

For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

 

Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with the handling or outcome of your information request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. An internal review will consider whether the handling or outcome of your request was appropriate, in line with the Act and/or the Regulations.

Internal Review requests should be submitted to the Information Governance & Compliance Officer. You can submit a request by e-mail or letter to:

Internal reviews will be conducted by the Senior Information Risk Owner, or their deputy. We aim to respond within 20 working days of the receipt of the request for an internal review.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the review, then you may seek a review by the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), which has the powers to uphold or overturn the decision. Please see ICO contact information below. SWFRS will abide by the decisions of the ICO unless it considers itself to have grounds for an appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal (Information Rights).

Please be aware that the ICO will be unlikely to accept a complaint until you have first been through our internal complaint’s procedure first.

 

Last Updated: 15th May 2024