Legal documents for business

Freedom of Information Act

25 February 2005

Under the Freedom of Information Act anyone can apply to a public authority for information held by the authority and this has to be provided unless it is protected on grounds of public security or confidentiality.

So, if you have bid for a public contract, your competitors can ask the public authority for information on your prices.

These will have to be provided unless the authority considers that the information is confidential or commercially sensitive.

Also, unless your contract says so, they do not have to tell you if an enquiry is received.

To protect yourself, here are a few tips:

1. If you bid for a public contract and you are not successful, ask for all your bidding papers to be returned to you so that they are not going to be available at the authority offices if someone else asks for information about your bid.

2.If you are bidding for work with a public authority, try to get agreement that the really sensitive information will be classified as confidential by them and record this in the agreement. A general confidentiality clause is going to be less useful than one that specifies the confidential issues.

3. Whether or not there is a confidentiality clause, try to get the authority to agree in the contract that they will notify you if they receive any enquiry under the Act that relates to your contract.

4. If you are a subcontractor, try to get similar suitable wording in your contract.