Since January 2005, the public has a general right of access to all types of recorded information held by public bodies, including councils. If you request a piece of information from us, we have a duty to disclose that information, providing we hold it and it is not subject to any legally defined exemptions.
Popular FOI data already available
Before making an FOI request, we have a number of pieces of information available for download that are regularly updated. They are:
- Business rates - including accounts with a relief or with an exemption
- Employees - including sickness absence and days lost per full-time equivalent, percentage of staff with a disability and gender ratio
- Planning application data for the City of Wolverhampton Council
We have also published a range of other information as part of the Local Government Association's Transparency Code, which came into act on 1 January 2015. These datasets are updated quarterly or annually as specified on our host site, DataShare.
- Council Spend - including all council expenditure over £1 and P-card expenditure
- Procurement
- Employees - including organisation chart, senior salaries and pay multiple.
- Fraud
- Grants
- Planning and Land - including planning applications and local authority land
- Vehicles and Roads - including parking spaces and parking accounts
- West Midlands Pensions Fund - including expenditure, P-cards and procurement
You can search for specific information in these files by downloading them from DataShare and then filtering the files on Excel. How to search using Data Share
Publication scheme
Another way to search for information is though our Publication Scheme. We continue to review council documents and where appropriate will make them routinely available through the The Publication Scheme.
Any document that is not currently published can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Still need to make an FOI request?
During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic the Council may not always be able to comply with the statutory deadlines due to the need to prioritise resources to other areas and you may experience understandable delays during this extraordinary period. We will let you know when we are able to respond to your request.
To make an FOI request it must be in writing, this includes email. After that we will:
- acknowledge your request on receipt
- reply in 20 working days
- tell you which FOI Officer is dealing with your request
- provide advice and assistance if you need it
- inform you if any exemptions apply. If they do, the council does not need to release the information and some exemptions can take longer than 20 days to look at so we will give you an estimate of when a decision will be made
There is no charge for FOI requests initially. If the information costs more than a certain amount to collect the council may not be able to provide it.
If you would like to make an FOI request under the Freedom of Information Act, please contact us:
- E-mail: foi@wolverhampton.gov.uk
- Information Governance Team
City of Wolverhampton Council
Civic Centre
St Peter's Square
Wolverhampton
WV1 1SH - For advice on making your Freedom of Information request, please call the Information Governance Team on 01902 550363 and please select Option 1. Note that you cannot make an FOI request over the phone.