Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council
The UK has multiple tiers of local government and not all local authorities have responsibility for education. This public authority is one of around 200 local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales which do have responsibilities for education. This council has the functions of a district level council. Councils of this type are usually the primary planning authority and council tax billing authority and have responsibility for, among other things, refuse collection, housing, food safety inspections, dog wardens, parks and street cleaning as well as cemeteries and crematoria. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council have stated that: "Any request received on or after 01/10/22 will receive an email advising that their request needs to be resubmitted via our online webforms"*.  (It now appears they have deferred the implementation of their policy until January 2023*)Refusing to process valid FOI requests made via email is against the law. For a Freedom of Information request to be valid, all that’s required is that a) it’s made in writing; b) it includes the requester’s name and an address for correspondence; and c) it describes the information being requested.

Please contact us at WhatDoTheyKnow if you experience any problems getting your request through to the council via our service. If necessary we will find an alternate contact address at the Council to ensure that requests will continue to get through.

See also a recent mySociety blog on this subject: Challenging public bodies who refuse to accept FOI requests by email. If you make a request to this authority, they might tell you that you need to complete a form on their website. The ICO have confirmed that whilst a public authority can request a form is filled in, you are not obliged to do this. By law, the authority has to provide a response to requests that they receive via WhatDoTheyKnow. If they ask you to fill in a form, you should challenge this.