Our Publication Scheme
We want to be open and clear with everyone. To help do this we like to share information people may need or want to know on our website or on paper.
The law, (Freedom of Information Act) says that we must have something called a publication scheme. This is a written promise from us to make different types of information available to you.
Our publication scheme sets out:
- what information we share or plan to share. We’ve grouped it under different headings to make it easier to read;
- how we share this information; and
- if you need to pay anything to get this information.
We follow a plan set by the Information Commissioner’s Office. If you want to know more about this you can check their website.
Our publication has 7 groups of information. These are:
We get our money from the Welsh Government, and you can see how we use it. We share information about our money and what we spend it on in our annual accounts.
Funding
Our remit letter
Spending
Annual Accounts
Recruitment
Our non-executive Board members are public appointees. This means they are members of the public who apply for the role through a similar process to all Public Bodies. Public appointments are made by Welsh Ministers.
Details on our non-executive members pay and expenses is in our Annual Report and accounts.
If you are wondering how we hire people, we would be happy to explain it. Just email us with what you would like to know [email protected]
Any jobs we have will be advertised
Pay and benefits
The terms and conditions for non-senior members of staff match the terms of Agenda for Change. You can find more information on the Agenda for Change pay and benefits
You can view information on pay bands and the number of staff working at those bands in our Annual Report and Accounts
Procurement
Because we are a small organisation we don’t do all our buying ourselves. We use a service from NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership.
We have our own policy that is very similar to the All Wales Procurement policy used by NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. You can view our procurement policy
You can find a list of contracts awarded and names of the suppliers (for contracts over £25,000)
If you would like more information about our staff and board members’ allowances and expenses, or staff pay and grading structures then drop us an email at [email protected].
Shortly after we became operational on the 1 April 2023, we published a plan to talk about the things we wanted to do quickly to help make a real difference to people and communities in all parts of Wales.
You can find out how we did during the first 100 days
- Our Strategic plan (ready in April 2024)
- Our Annual plan (ready in October 2023)
- Our National Standards
- Our Annual Reports
- Our equality plans and reports
- Our information and data management policy
- Our Remit Letter
Freedom of Information, publication and complaints
- Responses to freedom of information requests (in archive after 3 years)
- Our complaints procedure and complaints form
We use feedback that we get to help us to decide what we should do and how we should work. You can find out how to feedback
Our Board, Committees and delegation arrangements
Our ways of working
We want to act and behave in the right ways. That is why our standards of behaviour policy (our guide for the way we behave) is based on the ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’. You can view our standards of behaviour policy here. You can find out more about Seven Principles of Public Life.
- Equity, diversity and inclusion policy
- Welsh language policy and Welsh language standards
- Complaints procedure and complaints form
- Data retention policy and data retention schedule
- Privacy notices
- Dealing with challenging behaviours
You can find a list of our all our policies and procedures.
If you’d like to receive a copy of any of our policies or procedures you can request them by emailing [email protected].
- List of main contractors/suppliers
- Asset management plan and register
- Register Board members interests
- Register of Board members gifts and hospitality
You can find out more about what we do.
There are some things we might not share. These are things like if it is against the law to share it, or information that we can’t easily find or give to you. We may not share things we are still working on.
Charging for information
We try to share most of our information for free. But sometimes, it costs us to get you information. We may charge for photocopying, postage, staff time, or creating special datasets if there is a lot of cost involved. We will tell you if there is going to be a charge. The information below sets out where costs may apply and how much they are
Cost incurred Fee
Photocopying / Printing 10p per sheet
Postage and Packing Standard postage rate – capped at £15
Costs directly incurred as a Staff time calculated at basic rate
result of viewing the information
e.g. retrieving it from storage
Redaction Staff time calculated at basic rate
Creating a dataset Relevant copyright works available
for reuse
If there is a charge, we will need to collect the money before the information is given to you.
If the cost to us ends up being less than you paid we will give back the difference.
Can you copy our publications
You can copy or share our publications without charge, but please let people know you have got the information from us. We're all about being fair and it means you will be doing things in the way the re-use of public sector information regulations (2015) says.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-rpsi/
Open Government License
If you want to know more about selling the things we have created, or if you are in any doubt, you can find out more about publishing and copyright from the National Archives on the UK Government licensing framework:
Publishing datasets for re-use
We can give you any dataset we hold and that you have asked for, unless we believe it is not okay to do so because it would break rules. We will try and make it available on our website to be reused.
We use the Freedom of Information Act (Section 11 (5)) to describe what we mean by a dataset:
“information comprising a collection of information held in electronic form where all or most of the information in the collection—
- has been obtained or recorded for the purpose of providing a public authority with information in connection with the provision of a service by the authority or the carrying out of any other function of the authority,
- is factual information which—
- is not the product of analysis or interpretation other than calculation, and
- is not an official statistic (within the meaning given by section
6(1) of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007), and
- remains presented in a way that (except for the purpose of forming part of the collection) has not been organised, adapted or otherwise materially altered since it was obtained or recorded”
Information that is exempt
We will do our best to make information available. We won’t share information if there is a legal reason not to or if we think it may cause harm.
The Freedom of Information Act covers all information we hold. But there is some information that is ‘exempt’ from the Act and we must decide which parts can be shared. This is called a public interest test.
There are some ‘absolute exemptions’ where we do not have to provide the information at all.
For example:
- information relating to government policy
- if sharing the information would cause harm.
Our Data Protection Officer will decide if an exemption applies.
How can I access information?
Information and electronic documents are on our website.
If you can’t find what you are looking for or need help please contact us.
Email: [email protected]
Postal address: 33/35 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9HB
What happens when I ask for information?
When we get a request, we have to get back to you within 20 working days. If we need more information from you or if you need to pay a fee, the clock is stopped until we get the information or the fee (if it is needed).
If you don’t pay the fee within 3 months , we will assume that you no longer want the information.
Can I ask for information in a different format?
All the information on our website is bilingual (in English and Welsh). Need our information in a different way or language? No problem!, just ask, and we'll try our best, email [email protected].
Can requests for information be refused?
We share as much as we can, but there are limits to what we can share. We won't share if it's too costly, causes issues, or repeats old requests.
If we can't share something, we'll explain why.
What can I do if I am not satisfied with our response?
If you're not happy, you can chat with the person in charge of our information, called our Data Protection Officer.
You can reach our Data Protection Officer through one of the following ways:
Email: [email protected]
Postal address: 33/35 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9HB
Telephone: 02920 235 558
If you need to contact us please let us know why you are not are not happy and if you want to make a formal complaint.
If you are still not happy with the response you can ask the Information Commissioner to look at the decision.
You can get more information and advice from the Information Commissioner Wales at the following address:
ICO Wales contact details:
Information Commissioner’s Office – Wales
2nd Floor
Churchill House
Churchill Way
Cardiff
CF10 2HH
Telephone: 029 2067 8400
Fax: 029 2067 8399
Email: [email protected]