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Freedom Of Information Act 2000 - The Parole Board Publication Scheme

The Freedom Of Information Publication Scheme explains what information the Parole Board makes available to the public and where possible provides an easy method of accessing this information. This Publication Scheme is established in accordance with Section 19 of the Freedom Of Information 2000 Act.

PART 1: Introduction
Legal framework
Purpose and aims of the Parole Board
Purpose and structure of the Publication Scheme
Responsibility for the Parole Board Publication Scheme
Freedom of Information Act
Copyright
Obtaining documents and information under the Publication Scheme
How other information will be provided
Charges
Information Asset Register
Complaints
Review of the Publication Scheme
Tell us what you think
PART 2: Information Classes
Retention and disposal policy
Exempt information
Information classes

Part 1: Introduction

In accordance with Section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Parole Board, like all other public bodies has undertaken to adopt and maintain a scheme for the publication of information. The Publication Scheme provides details of what information is already made available by the Parole Board and what may be available in the future. It also outlines how to identify and ask for further information. In this context, "publication" simply means, "to make publicly available".

The Information Commissioner has approved our scheme and we are committed to monitor and regularly update the scheme in accordance with the Information Commissioners guidance. An electronic version of the scheme is available on the Parole Board website at www.paroleboard.gov.uk.

Legal framework

The Parole Board for England and Wales was established by the Criminal Justice Act 1967 to advise on the early release of prisoners. In 1996 the Board was established as an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the Parole Board (Transfer of Functions) Order 1998 the Parole Board has delegated authority to decide on applications for parole from prisoners serving from four to less than fifteen years. For those serving fifteen years or more the Board makes a recommendation to the Secretary of State. The 1991 Act, as amended by the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, and the Criminal Justice Act 2003, also gives authority to the Board to decide on the release of life sentence prisoners, those detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure and those serving sentences for public protection. Under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 the Board considers whether the recall to prison of determinate sentence prisoners by the Secretary of State was justified, considers representations from these prisoners and determines whether re-release is appropriate.

In considering these cases the Board is guided by Directions issued by the Secretary of State.

The Board has responsibility for considering the following types of cases:

Indeterminate for public protection, mandatory life, discretionary life and automatic life sentence prisoners and Her Majesty's Pleasure detainees - a sift process and, if release is being considered, an oral hearing.
Determinate sentence prisoners serving between 4 and 15 years and extended sentences for public protection - paper panels that may direct release.
Determinate sentence prisoners with sentences of 15 years and over - paper hearings that make recommendations to the Secretary of State.
Recall of prisoners.

Purpose and aims of the Parole Board

The Parole Board Publication Scheme has been designed to help you find out how we carry out the purpose and aims of the Board. The Parole Board is an independent body that works with its criminal justice partners to protect the public by risk assessing prisoners to decide whether they can be safely released into the community.

To achieve this purpose we aim to:

Aim 1 - Operations and core business - To make risk assessments which are rigorous, fair and timely with the primary aim of protecting the public and which contribute to the rehabilitation of prisoners where appropriate.

Aim 2 - Resource Management and Accountability - To demonstrate effective and accountable corporate governance by maintaining strong internal control, setting clear objectives and managing corporate risk and to deliver best value by optimum use of resources.

Aim 3 - Independence, Strategy, Communications and Change - To promote the independence of and public confidence in the work of the Board, while effectively managing change.

Purpose and structure of the Publication Scheme

The Publication Scheme provides a route map so you can find information held by the Board quickly and easily. Accordingly, the scheme provides contact points throughout its structure.

The scheme specifies:

the classes of information we publish or intend to publish
the manner in which information in each class is or is intended to be published
whether the material is or is intended to be available free of charge or on payment

The Parole Board has always sought to be as open as possible, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, copies of which are available on the website of the Office of Public Sector Information at:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/20000036.htm

Sometimes, information may not be provided and the reasons will be given in each instance. Documents may be edited where, in the view of the Board, particular information should not be disclosed because of confidentiality, unwarranted invasion of privacy, commercial sensitivity or other specified grounds, including the public interest.

The purpose of this Publication Scheme is to make information available before you need to ask for it.

Responsibility for the Parole Board Publication Scheme

Ms Christine Glenn, Chief Executive Officer, The Parole Board, Grenadier House, 99-105 Horseferry Road, London, SW1P 2DX, has overall responsibility for the Parole Board Publication Scheme.

The person responsible for maintaining the Publication Scheme on a daily basis is:

Tim Morris
Head of Communications
The Parole Board
Grenadier House
99-105 Horseferry Road
London, SW1P 2DX

email: tim.morris5@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act) received Royal Assent on 30 November 2000. It creates a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public authorities, sets out exemptions from that right and places a number of obligations on public authorities. The Parole Board is a public authority under the Act and is therefore bound by its provisions. The general right of access was introduced in January 2005.

The Ministry of Justice leads on policy related to the Act and under Sections 45 and 46 has published Codes of Practice for public authorities on compliance and records management.

www.justice.gov.uk

The Information Commissioner has a duty to promote best practice under the Act and to ensure compliance. The Commissioner's address is:

The Office of the Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5 AF

Enquiry Line: 01625 545745

www.ico.gov.uk

Subject only to certain prescribed conditions and the exemptions set out in Sections 21 to 44 in Part II of the FOI Act, the public will have a statutory right:

to be told whether the Parole Board holds information of the description specified in the request; and if so;
to have that information disclosed.

The Parole Board is committed to the principles of openness embodied in the Act and will release information to the greatest extent possible, consistent with the public interest. The Parole Board will also comply with the Codes of Practice that have been issued under Sections 45 and 46.

Copyright

The Parole Board is a Crown body and the information we produce is subject to Crown copyright, which is administered by the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) (formerly Her Majesty's Stationery Office). The material listed in this Publication Scheme is Crown copyright unless stated otherwise.

The copyright in some of the material in this Publication Scheme has been waived (but not the Parole Board logos), meaning you can reproduce this material freely. Categories of material for which copyright has been waived include: press notices, consultation documents, documents featured on official websites (except where expressly indicated otherwise), headline statistics and unpublished public records. More details of these and other categories can be found at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/index.htm

For other types of material however, the supply of documents under Freedom of Information does not give the person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright, for example, by making multiple copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public.

Brief extracts of any of the material included in this Publication Scheme may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and news reporting.

Details of the arrangements for reusing Crown copyright material can be found on OSPI's website at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm or by contacting OPSI at:

Office of Public Sector Information
Licensing Division
St Clements House
2-16 Colegate
Norwich
NR3 1BQ

Tel: 01603 621000

e-mail: hmsolicensing@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk

Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by the Crown should be sought from the copyright holders concerned. If in doubt, users should contact OPSI in the first instance.

Obtaining documents and information under the Publication Scheme

The Parole Board routinely places information on its website. This publication scheme is not a list of actual publications since this may change as other items are published but rather it is a description of the classes or types of information published. To access an individual document the simplest way of locating a document is to type the class name into the search facility on the Parole Board website. This will provide a list of individual documents available for downloading. It is all freely available for downloading, if you have Internet access.

Some documents on the website may be published in the Adobe Acrobat PDS (Portable Document Format) file format. To view or print these you will require Abode Acrobat software, which may be downloaded free of charge from the Adobe website.

To obtain hard copies of information included in the scheme please use the contact addresses or telephone numbers provided within each class, copies will be provided on request. Other information published in accordance with this Scheme, but not available electronically, will also be sent on request.

You can request published information by e-mailing the Parole Board at tim.morris5@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk or by writing to:

Tim Morris
Head of Communications
The Parole Board
Grenadier House
99-105 Horseferry Road
London, SW1P 2DX

How other information will be provided

Access to Parole Board information not made available under this Publication Scheme or otherwise readily accessible, will be administered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In addition, further information of interest to you may be published by The Stationery Office (TSO) and may be viewed free of charge on a TSO website (www.official-documents.co.uk) Printed copies are available to order (on payment of the due price) from the Stationery Office's website (www.tso.co.uk/bookshop) and TSO shops in major towns and cities across the UK. Among the information published by the TSO are:

Parole Board Annual Report and Accounts
Command Papers, White Papers and Green Papers
UK national legislation

Yet more information is available from other sources, such as:

Answers to Parliamentary Questions on House of Commons website www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmpubns.htm and the House of Lords website at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldvolume.htm
Investigations by HM Inspectorate of probation relating to the Parole Board at http://inspectorates.homeoffice.gov.uk/hmiprobation/

Charges

We indicate in the individual Publication Scheme information classes where a charge may be levied. You should expect to pay for priced items such as glossy publications, videos and bound information such as reports.

The following could apply to information you intend to use for private research/study:

Free of charge on the website (i.e. there is no charge by us, but the user will have to meet any charges by their Internet service provider, personal printing costs, etc.) If you don't have Internet access, you can access our website using your local library or internet cafe. For those without Internet access, a single printout as on the website will be available by post from the above contact address. However, requests for multiple print outs or for archived copies of documents which are no longer available on the web, may attract a charge for the cost of retrieval, photocopying, postage etc. We will let you know this at the time of your request. Any charge will be payable in advance.
Free of charge leaflets or booklets on advice or information to the public.
Free of charge to view, but a charge may be made for photocopies. We will let you know of any charge at the time of your request and this will be payable in advance.
Chargeable hard copy, for example "glossy" or other bound paper copies, in some cases CD-ROM, video or other media are chargeable as in the publication scheme.

Information Asset Register

You can also access information about the Board via the Information Asset Register (IAR). In the Future management of Crown copyright White Paper, published in 1999, a centrally held Government-wide Information Asset Register (IAR) was proposed, which would be available to all, on the Internet. The IAR is a catalogue of Government wide information assets that has not been published and should therefore complement individual publication schemes. The Information can be reused under licence. Anyone with web access can search the IAR in order to identify:

what information the Government holds;
how useful that information is; and
importantly, a contact point to whom requests for underlying information can be made.

Requests for information in the IAR are handled in accordance with the FOI Act.

The kinds of information included in the IAR are databases, statistical surveys, reports, research material and special collections of paper files. Anything, in fact, that a Government Body might have collected as part of their business but which has never been published. Some of this information may be made available on request, but not necessarily all of it.

You can search the IAR at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/iar/index.htm.

More general information about the IAR is in HMSO's Guidance Note 18, accessible on the OPSI website at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/information-asset-register-and-freedom-of-information.htm

Complaints

If you have a complaint about the operation of this Publication Scheme or dissatisfied with how the Parole Board has dealt with a request for information please write to:

Pat Boshell
Complaints Officer
The Parole Board
Grenadier House
99-105 Horseferry Road
London, SW1P 2DX

e-mail: patrick.boshell3@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Review of the Publication Scheme

We will review our Publication Scheme regularly and routinely monitor its operation. We undertake to assess all new information for possible inclusion in the scheme.

Tell us what you think

This Publication Scheme is intended to help you find Parole Board information easily and quickly and to improve the flow of information into the public domain. We want to improve our service to you and we would, therefore, welcome any comment or suggestions that you may have about how we could improve the scheme. We are committed to reviewing the scheme and your feedback will help. Please write to:

Tim Morris
Head of Communications
The Parole Board
Grenadier House
99-105 Horseferry Road
London, SW1P 2DX

email: tim.morris5@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Part 2: Information Classes

This publication scheme aims to make as much Parole Board information as possible readily accessible to the public, on a continuous basis. We are committed to releasing more material in the future.

The Parole Board will make available information within the information classes described below. Information falling into the classes will be retained in line with the Parole Board's retention and disposal policy.

Retention and disposal policy

Parole files:

Parole dossiers are disclosed to the Parole Board under the understanding that they remain the property of the Ministry of Justice. Once action is complete by the Parole Board, parole files are returned to Ministry of Justice storage and fall within the destruction policy of the Ministry of Justice.
Separate files are maintained by the Parole Board relating to any action taken by the Board following the completion of the review. These files are kept until one day past the respective prisoner's sentence expiry date and then destroyed.
Parole Board files may be kept beyond these periods in the case of an application for judicial review.

Lifer/Extended sentence files (including sentences for public protection under the Criminal Justice Act 2003):

Files are destroyed 9 months after the end of a review, or if there has been any further action, 9 months after the completion of such action.
Panel administrator notes of oral hearings are destroyed 9 months after the end of a hearing.
Files and notes may be kept beyond these periods in the case of an application for judicial review.

Financial records:

Financial records are destroyed where there has been no action after 10 years.

Parole Board members' files and notes:

Members' personal files are destroyed 2 years after the end of their appointment.
Members' notes of individual reviews are destroyed 9 months after the respective review has been completed.
Notes may be kept beyond that period in the case of an application for judicial review.

The web site is reviewed and updated at regular intervals.

Exempt information

Information on individual prisoners

The Board is of the view that individual information relating to the applications for parole, review of life sentence prisoners and the recall to prison of those whose licences have been revoked is exempt information under section 40 Freedom of Information Act. This is on the basis that it constitutes personal data within the definition of the Data Protection Act 1998 and disclosure would contravene one or more of the data protection principles.

Personnel information on Parole Board members and secretariat staff

The Board is of the view that personnel information relating to members of the Parole Board secretariat and both full-time and part-time members of the Board is exempt information under section 40 Freedom of Information Act. This is on the basis that it constitutes personal data within the definition of the Data Protection Act 1998 and disclosure would contravene one or more of the data protection principles.

Information classes

Information will be provided under the following classes:

Development and implementation of Parole Board policy

Meetings of the Management Board
Corporate Risk Register
Complaints Procedure
Anti-Fraud and Corruption Strategy
Data Protection Policy

Information for prisoners, victims and the public

The Parole Guide
The Discretionary Lifer Hearings Guide
FAQ

Role, function and management of the Parole Board

Annual Report and Accounts
Business Plan
Three Year Corporate Plan
Performance Statistics

Parole Board accounts and financial information

Annual Report and Accounts

Information for media

Press releases

Guidance and directions to Parole Board members and secretariat staff

The Parole Board Rules
Secretary of State's directions
Member Handbook
Oral Hearings Guide
Guidance on Risk Assessment
Staff Handbook

Information on Parole Board members

Names and professional qualifications of members
Members' fees and expenses
Core competencies for members
Job opportunities

Under each class can be found:

A brief description of the information available within the class
The main format in which the information is made available, by website, e-mail or post.
Whether the class contains chargeable information (indicated by "£"). Prices for Stationery Office publications are available on its website at www.official-documents.co.uk
Whether material is available in other languages

Class: Development and implementation of Parole Board policy

Description: Minutes of the Management Board

Format available: Keynotes of minutes published on web site www.paroleboard.gov.uk, or one paper copy supplied to each applicant

Chargeable information: No charge

Notes: Not available in any other language. The information will usually be available four weeks after the meeting. Information will be withheld or edited if it contains confidential or commercial material.

Class: Development and implementation of Parole Board policy

Description: Corporate Risk Register

Format available: Policy published on web site www.paroleboard.gov.uk, or one paper copy supplied to each applicant

Chargeable information: No charge