The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you the right to request information from any public authority. It promotes openness and accountability among public sector organisations, so that everyone can understand how authorities make decisions, carry out their duties and spend public money.

The Act gives you a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by Leeds City Council. There are some exemptions, for example personal information, where we have to apply a public interest test to make sure that witholding the information, rather than releasing it, is in the public interest.

The Freedom of Information Act also says that we must maintain a publication scheme which sets what information we publish, how we intend to publish it and whether we will make a charge to provide it. You can view the council's publication scheme and other guidance notes from the downloadable documents section of this page. 

The idea of a publication scheme is to try and make sure as much information as possible is freely available and easy to access so that you don't need to make a specific request for it. We are required to make sure we publish all our information within this scheme, and to review it from time to time.

Each council department has a Freedom of Information practitioner, contact details are given below. You can email your request directly to the practitioner for the department or section you think you will have the information you are requesting. Alternatively, if you aren't sure which department to contact, you can contact any of the practitioners mentioned below, and they will make sure your request goes to the right person.

Section	Contact
Development	jayne.conboy@leeds.gov.uk
Social Services	martin.foster@leeds.gov.uk
Learning and Leisure	joedy.greenhough@leeds.gov.uk
Corporate Services	andrew.cameron@leeds.gov.uk
Neighbourhood and Housing	david.reid@leeds.gov.uk
Customer Services	alex.white@leeds.gov.uk
Legal Services	clare.millington@leeds.gov.uk
Procurement	dean.backhouse@leeds.gov.uk
Executive Support	nicola.buchan@leeds.gov.uk
City Services	tom.smith@leeds.gov.uk
Democratic Services	kate.arscott@leeds.gov.uk
LEH ALMO	graham.curling@leedseasthomes.org.uk
LSEH ALMO	ian.montgomery@lseh.org.uk
LNEH ALMO	amanda.britton@leeds.gov.uk
LSH ALMO	vicki.jagger@leedssouthhomes.org.uk
LWH ALMO	alan.beynon@leeds.gov.uk
LNWH ALMO	juliet.duke@lnwh.org.uk
Education Leeds	paul.taylor@educationleeds.co.uk