Contents
These links take you to the relevant section, further down the page:
Section 1. Introduction - purpose and aims of the publication scheme
Section 2. About the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS)
Section 3. Preparing the Publication Scheme
Section 4. Accessing information under the scheme
Section 5. Information that we may withhold
Section 6. Our charging policy
Section 7. Our copyright policy
Section 8. Our records retention schedule
Section 11. How to access information which is not available under this scheme
Section 12. Classes of information
Section 1. Introduction to the publication scheme
The Freedom of Information ( Scotland ) Act 2002 (FOISA) provides individuals with a right of access to all recorded information held by Scotland's public authorities. Anyone can use this right, and information can only be withheld where FOISA expressly permits it.
Section 23 of FOISA also requires that all Scottish public authorities maintain a publication scheme. A publication scheme sets out the types of information that a public authority routinely makes available. This scheme has been approved by the Scottish Information Commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing FOISA. We are also obliged to review this scheme from time to time.
The purpose of the scheme is to provide you with details of the range of information that we routinely publish. The scheme also provides details of how you can access this information, and tells you whether it is available free, or if there is a charge for the information.
Alongside FOISA, the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) provide a separate right of access to the environmental information that we hold. This publication scheme contains details of our environmental policy and our performance against our environmental targets that we routinely make available.
Where information is not published under this scheme, you can request it from us under FOISA or, in the case of environmental information, the EIRs. For further information on accessing information not covered by this scheme, refer to Section 11 – How to access information not available under the scheme.
Section 2. About the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS)
Who we are and what we do
We are a Government Agency. We pay grants and bursaries to Scottish students in higher education. We have 160 staff and handle over 130,000 applications every year.
What we do:
- assess and pay financial support for living costs and tuition fees;
- deal with the Students' Allowances Scheme, the Postgraduate Students' Allowances Scheme (PSAS), the Nursing and Midwifery Students Bursary Scheme (NMSB) and applications for student loans;
- provide resources and data to the Student Loans Company for the payment of student loans;
- distribute Discretionary Funds and Childcare Funds to Scottish universities and colleges;
- maintain a register of charities that offer educational endowments;
- help learners through the Individual Learning Accounts Scotland (ILAS) scheme, which we run with Learndirect Scotland; and
- work with the Health Directorate to develop and deliver NHS Bursaries targeted at specific groups (e.g. Dentistry students).
Section 3. Preparing the Publication Scheme
When preparing or reviewing our publication scheme, we are obliged by FOISA to have due regard to the public interest in providing access to the information that we hold which relates to:
- the services we provide;
- the costs of those services;
- the standard of those services;
- the facts that inform the important decisions we take; and
- the reasoning that informs our decisions.
In preparing this publication scheme SAAS has looked at the information most frequently requested on our website.
Section 4. Accessing information under the scheme
Information available under our publication scheme will normally be made available through the routes described below. Section 12 – Classes of Information provides more details on the information available under the scheme.
Information included in the SAAS publication scheme will generally be available on our website (www.saas.gov.uk). If you do not have access to the website or would like a paper copy of a document please contact the Agency in one of the following ways:-
General Enquiry Unit: +44(0)845 111 1711
Email:SAAS FOI Request
Fax: +44(0)131 2445887
Postal address:Student Awards Agency for Scotland
Gyleview House
3 Redheughs Rigg
Edinburgh
EH12 9HH
When writing to us to request information, please include your name and address, full details of the information or documents you would like to receive. Please also include a telephone number so we can telephone you to clarify any details, if necessary.
Advice and assistance:
If you have any difficulty identifying the information you want to access, then please contact our general enquiry unit on 0845 111 1711 who will be happy to help.
Section 5. Information that we may withhold
All information covered by our publication scheme can either be accessed through our website, or will be provided promptly following our receipt of your request.
Our aim in maintaining this publication scheme is to be as open as possible. You should note, however, that there may be limited circumstances where information will be withheld from one of the classes of information listed in Section 12 – Classes of Information. Information will only be withheld, however, where FOISA or in the case of environmental information, the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, expressly permits it.
Information may be withheld, for example, where its disclosure would breach the law of confidentiality, harm an organisation’s commercial interests, or whose release would, or would be likely to, prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs. Information may also be withheld if it is another person’s personal information, and its release would breach the data protection legislation.
Whenever information is withheld we will inform you of this, and will set out why that information cannot be released. Even where information is withheld it may, in many cases, be possible to provide copies with the withheld information edited out.
If you wish to complain about any information which has been withheld from you, please refer to Section 10 – Complaints.
Section 6. Our charging policy
There is no charge for information which can download from SAAS’s web-site. If you cannot access the website please contact us to ask for a single copy which is free of charge. However we may charge for requests for multiple print outs or for multiple hard copies of documents or booklets to cover photocopying and postage etc. Printing and photocopy costs will not exceed £1 per 10 pages.
If we decide to make a charge we will tell you at the time of your request. You will have to pay in advance of receiving the information you have asked for.
The Agency does not charge for providing information under FOISA but we will normally refuse to deal with a request where we estimate that it will cost more than £600 to locate, retrieve and provide the information. If you can be as precise as possible about the information you are seeking it will help to keep your request within this cost limit.
Section 7. Our copyright policy
SAAS is a Crown body and the information we produce is subject to Crown copyright, which is administered by the Queen’s Printer for Scotland. The material listed in this publication scheme is Crown copyright unless stated otherwise. The copyright in some of the material which may be found in this publication scheme has been waived. This means that you can re-use this material freely. Categories of material for which copyright has been waived include: press notices, legislation, and explanatory notes on the legislation, ministerial speeches, consultation documents, documents featured on official websites (except where expressly indicated otherwise), headline statistics and unpublished public records. More details of these and other categories can be found at: http://www.oqps.gov.uk
For other types of material, the supply of documents under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) does not give the person or organisation who receives them an automatic right to re-use the documents in a way that would infringe copyright, for example, by making multiple copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public.
Brief extracts of any of the material included in this publication scheme may be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research and non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and new reporting.
Details of the arrangements for re-using Crown copyright material can be found on the website of the Office of Public Sector Information at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm
Authorisation to re-use copyright material not owned by the Crown should be sought from the copyright holders concerned.
Section 8 . Our records retention schedule
SAAS has a records retention schedule for all documents we create or hold which sets out the length of time which documents must be held. This means that although the FOISA is retrospective, it will only be possible to provide copies of documents that are still in existence. A copy of the records retention schedule can be found under the policies, procedures and internal guidance class of information.
Section 9. Feedback
FOISA requires that we that we review our publication scheme from time to time. As a result, we welcome feedback on how we can develop our scheme further. If you would like to comment on any aspect of this publication scheme, then please contact us. You may, for example wish to tell us about:
- other information that you would like to see included in the scheme;
- whether you found the scheme easy to use;
- whether you found the publication scheme useful;
- whether our staff were helpful;
- other ways in which our publication scheme can be improved.
Please send any comments or suggestions to -
Chief Executive's Office
Student Awards Agency for Scotland
Gyleview House
3 Redheughs Rigg
Edinburgh
EH12 9HH
Email:SAAS FOI Officer
Section 10. Complaints
Our aim is to make our publication scheme as user-friendly as possible, and we hope that you can access all the information we publish with ease. If you do wish to complain about any aspect of the publication scheme, however, then please contact us, and we will try and resolve your complaint as quickly as possible. You can contact:
Chief Executive's Office
Student Awards Agency for Scotland
Gyleview House
3 Redheughs Rigg
Edinburgh
EH12 9HH
Email:
SAAS FOI Officer
Any complaint will be acknowledged within two working days of receipt and we will respond in full within twenty working days.
You have legal rights to access information under this scheme and a right of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with our response. These rights apply only to information requests made in writing* or another recordable format. If you are unhappy with our responses to your request you can ask us to review it and if you are still unhappy, you can make an appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner’s website has a guide to this three step process, and he operates an enquiry service on Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm. His office can be contacted as follows:
Scottish Information Commissioner
Kinburn Castle
Doubledykes Road
St Andrews
Fife
KY16 9DS
Telephone: 01334 464610
Email:
enquiries@itspublicknowledge.info
Website: www.itspublicknowledge.info
Section 11. How to access information which is not available under this scheme
If the information you are seeking is not available under this publication scheme, then you may wish to request it from us. The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 provides you with a right of access to the information we hold, subject to certain exemptions. The Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) separately provide a right of access to the environmental information we hold, while the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) provides a right of access to any personal information about you that we hold. Again, these rights are subject to certain exceptions or exemptions.
Should you wish to request a copy of any information that we hold that is not available under this scheme, please write to:Chief Executive's Office
Student Awards Agency for Scotland
Gyleview House
3 Redheughs Rigg
Edinburgh
EH12 9HH
Email: SAAS FOI Officer
Telephone: 0131 244 5890
When writing to us to request information, please include your name and address, full details of the information or documents you would like to receive. Please also include a telephone number so we can telephone you to clarify any details, if necessary.
Charges for information not available in the publication scheme under FOISA is the same as under Section 6 – Our charging policy.
Requests for your own personal data
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you have the right to ask us for a copy of any personal information that we hold relating to you. This is called a subject access request.
If you wish to access your personal information you should make your request in writing to SAAS, Gyleview House, 3 Redheughs Rigg, Edinburgh, EH12 9HH or by emailing SAAS Data Protection - Subject Access Request.
Before we can release information to you we need proof of your identity. This can be a copy of your driving licence, birth certificate or passport. You also need to pay a £10 fee. Cheques should be made payable to the ‘Student Awards Agency for Scotland’.
You need to send this proof with your payment together with a letter which is signed by you and which tells us:
- what information you want to access - please provide as much detail as possible to help us find it.
- your home address
- details of the course you are studying
- address where we should send information
We aim to meet your request within 40 days of receiving your letter and payment of the fee.
If you are unhappy with a response you have received to a Data Protection subject access request or have a complaints about the way we have handled your personal information you can contact the UK Information Commissioner at:-
The Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire,
SK9 5AF
Tel: 08456 306060
www.ico.gov.uk
Charges for environmental information
We do not charge for the time to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. Charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you.
In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge and how it has been calculated. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you.
Charges are calculated on the basis of the actual cost to the authority of providing the information.
- Photocopying is charged at 10p per A4 sheet for black and white copying, 30p per A4 sheet for colour copying.
- Postage is charged at actual rate for first class mail
- Staff time is calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour.
The first £100 worth of information will be provided to you without charge.
Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you will be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50, that calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500.
Where it would cost more than £600 to provide the information to you, however, we will ask you to pay the full cost of providing the information, with no waiver for any portion of the cost.
Section 12. Classes of information
List of classes which the Agency publishes or intends to publish.
The classes of information contained in the scheme may contain exempt information under FOISA which we may not make available under the scheme. When considering whether or not we have to withhold information, we will take into account the Data Protection Act 1998 and FOISA.
We have grouped the classes of information available under this Publication Scheme into the following classes:
- Who we are and what we do
- Financial information
- Strategies and performance
- Policies, procedures and internal guidance
- Publications
The information available under these categories is listed by title, description of the information and frequency of publication.
Information contained in this Publication Scheme which is due to be published within 12 weeks of the date of the request will be supplied as soon as is practicable on or around the date of publication.
You can also download most of the documents from our website. To read PDF documents you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader which is available at www.adobe.co.uk.