Freedom of Information

Last updated: 7 August 2020

• About the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
• Search our website
• How to make a request
• Right to review
• Environmental Information Regulation requests
• More information

About the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives you the right to access recorded information held by public authorities, such as Social Work England. Anyone can request information – there are no restrictions on your age, nationality or where you live.

Search our website

We recommend searching our website before submitting a request. It may be that the information you are looking for is already published on our website. We regularly publish information covering all areas of what we do.

For further information about the types of information we regularly make available on our website, please see our publication scheme.

Please note that information regarding social work is also published by the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care.

How to make a request

If you can't find the information you are looking for on our website, you can make Freedom of Information request.

Your Freedom of Information request must include:

• your name
• a description of the information you are asking for

You can submit your request by email to: [email protected]. Please include “FOI Request” in the subject line.

You can also submit a Freedom of Information request by post to: Information request, Social Work England, 1 North Bank, Blonk Street, Sheffield, S3 8JY.

If writing to us by post, please also include the email or postal address to which we can send the reply.

We will respond to your request as soon as possible, and in most cases within 20 working days, as required by law.

In some cases, where we need more time to consider the public interest in relation to your request, we may need up to an additional 20 working days to respond. If this applies, we will tell you within the first 20 working days of your request.

Where we hold the information, we will provide you with a copy, unless an exemption to disclosure applies - in which case we will explain our reasons for not supplying it.

Right to review

If you make a request and are not satisfied with our response, you may ask us to review the decision we have made.

If you would like us to do so you should write to us as soon as possible and within 2 months of receiving the response.

We aim to carry out a review and respond to you within 20 working days. However, this is not a statutory deadline and we may occasionally need to take longer. If that is the case, we will tell you.

Environmental Information Regulation requests

The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 allow you to request access to environmental information held by public authorities, such as Social Work England.

The regulations allow access in a similar way to the Freedom of Information Act, although you can also request information verbally.

You should provide the same details as for a Freedom of Information request and contact us using the same contact details as above.

More information

If you would like more information about the Freedom of Information Act, you can:

• find out more from the Information Commissioner's Office
• read about your rights and get guidance