Information released under the Freedom of Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations

From 1 January 2005 the general right of access to information held by public authorities came into force under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs).

Many documents provided by the Food Standards Agency will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using documents covered by Crown Copyright on the OPSI website. See link below.

Information provided under the Freedom of Information Act which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright or other Intellectual Property rights of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Their permission should be gained before reproducing or publishing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information.

The EIRs establish an access regime which allows people to request environmental information from public authorities and those bodies carrying out a public function. Both the Act and Regulations are enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Below are lists of information released by the Food Standards Agency and its Executive Agency, the Meat Hygiene Service. Where information has been withheld under provisions in the FOIA or the EIRs, details are given in the third column under the heading ‘Outcome’. Glossaries of the relevant sections and regulations are provided at the links below.

If you cannot find details of the information you are looking for and want to make a request for information to the Agency, use our Contact Us list to identify the correct person. There is a link to the Agency's publication scheme below.

Please note these lists do not include the 88 requests for a copy of the register of dairy establishments the FSA received in 2005, or the 9 similar requests received in early 2006. In response to these requests we provided the register, withholding only a small amount of information under s40 and s43 of the Freedom of Information Act. Since June 2006 the List of approved milk and dairy establishments has been published on the Agency website.