Freedom of Information Offices Editing and Proofreading Services

Access to information work sits at a permanent point of friction. A requester believes they are entitled to a record; a programme area believes releasing it will cause a problem; and the access office has to decide, under a statutory clock, and then explain the decision to someone who will read the explanation as either transparency or obstruction. What makes this hard is that the decision is usually defensible and the letter explaining it usually is not.

We edit what access and privacy offices produce — decision letters granting, partially granting and refusing access, exemption and exclusion explanations, fee estimates and waiver decisions, time extension notices, transfer and consultation notices, third party notices and representations processes, personal information request responses, privacy breach notifications to affected individuals, privacy impact assessments, routine and proactive disclosure material, records retention and disposition guidance, procedure manuals for access analysts, training material for programme areas, and submissions and responses to an information commissioner or oversight body. Our editors check that a refusal explains itself to the person receiving it, and that internal guidance is clear about where discretion exists.

The refusal letter is where an access office earns or loses its reputation. The standard version lists the sections applied, states that the records are withheld pursuant to them, and offers a review right. To the requester this reads as a wall, and it prompts a complaint that consumes more of the office's time than a better letter would have taken to write. We rewrite these so the letter says what records were located and how the search was conducted, so each exemption is explained in a sentence about this record rather than by citation alone — what harm the disclosure would cause, and to whom — so any discretionary exemption states that discretion was exercised and what was weighed, and so partial release is described accurately: how much was withheld, and whether the severed portions are substantive or names and phone numbers. We also make the review route concrete. Offices that write refusals this way receive fewer complaints, and the complaints they do receive are about the decision rather than about not understanding it.

Everything you send is treated in strict confidence. We are editors rather than legal advisers and offer no view on the application of any exemption, the scope of a request, or a duty to disclose. We ask that records under review not be sent to us — we can work on your letters, templates and guidance with the record details redacted. What we can do is make refusals comprehensible and your internal guidance consistent.