24.07.24
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), higher education institutions are classed as public authorities.
Among other things the Act requires St Catharine's College to produce a public scheme to include as much information about the College as possible.
The scheme acts as a guide to the information that the College routinely makes available to the public. The College has adopted the relevant elements of the Model Publication Scheme for Higher Education as approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The scheme sets out the information that the College is required to make available free of charge and is grouped into the seven classes listed below:
Most of the information is available free of charge and can be downloaded from this section.
Information held by the College which is not published under the scheme can be requested by submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request via email to foi@caths.cam.ac.uk or in writing to the Bursar, St Catharine's College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1RL. FOI requests will be formally acknowledged and a due date for response provided.
The information will normally be provided free of charge, unless the resource costs involved in establishing if the information is held and retrieving the information would exceed the appropriate limit set by the Ministry of Justice of £450.
The College does not normally impose a charge for postage, reproducing documents, or for providing the information in the requested format. However, for large requests or where the College has incurred substantial costs, the College may decide to charge the applicant. The charge will be no higher than that incurred by the College and will not include staff resource costs. The requester will be informed of any charges in advance.
If a person requires information in an alternative format, owing to a disability, there will be no charge for the cost of providing the information in the alternative format. The College will seek to accommodate the needs of those whose first language is not English.
The FOIA does not require the creation of datasets for publication, nor does it require datasets to be updated if they would not otherwise have been updated as part of the College's function. In deciding whether to release a dataset, the College will consider any exemptions that may apply and in particular the exemption in section 40 of the FOIA relating to personal data, and the Information Commissioner’s Code of Practice on Anonymization
The College may publish any dataset held that has been requested and any updated versions, in an electronic form that is capable of re-use, unless it is satisfied that it is not appropriate to do so.
If any information in the dataset is a relevant copyright work, and the College is the sole owner of that work, the College will consider making this information available for re-use under an agreed copyright license.
The publication scheme is regularly reviewed and the College welcomes feedback about both the information provided and the access to it. Comments should be directed to the Bursar on the contact details above.
