Council Publication Scheme and Information Access
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”) parish councils are required to adopt and maintain an information publication scheme. The Information Commissioner’s Office has produced a generic Model Publication Scheme which councils must adopt and operate from 1 January 2009. The model commits councils to ‘produce and publish the method by which the specific information will be available so that it can be easily identified and accessed by members of the public’. To help councils meet this obligation a Template Guide to information has been produced. This completed guide and the Model Publication Scheme document itself form the basis of our commitment. A local council will breach the Act if it has not adopted the model scheme and/or is not publishing in accordance with it by 1 January 2009.
The Template Guide lists the information a local council is expected to hold and make available. It is necessary for the council to state how the specific information can be obtained and if there is a cost involved. Our guide provides a list of all the information Yarnscombe Parish Council makes routinely available, explains how it can be accessed and whether or not a charge will be made for it. The guide, like the Model Publication Scheme document, does not need further approval by the Information Commissioner. Yarnscombe Parish Council will ensure that the public can access the completed guide and the information listed in it, both on this website and in paper form.
The Model Publication Scheme and the completed Template Guide are now available to read from this page of the website. Where the completed guide refers to information available on the website, this information can be found in the third document listed below: “Yarnscombe Parish Council – Information Accessible to the Public”.
More information about the functioning of the Parish Council is available on the Governance page.
(Please note: to read the documents referenced on this page you will need Adobe® Reader® or a similar PDF file viewer. If you do not have Adobe® Reader® you can install it by clicking this button (link opens in new browser tab or window): 
). In order to save paper, you are encouraged to read these documents online rather than printing them.
Model Publication Scheme