Guide to the information we publish


The laws around freedom of information say that the Commissioner is a public authority. Because they are, these laws also say the Commissioner must produce and maintain a publication scheme. This is a document that:

  • sets out the classes of information that they make available by routine, and
  • tells the public how to access other information they hold, and what it might cost to do this.

Our office has adopted the Scottish Information Commissioner’s Model Publication Scheme, and this page sets out the information we publish and how to access it.

What information do we make available, and why?

We publish information about our work on our website under nine classes of information, so that you can access it when you need to without contacting us.

If you don’t want to or can’t access the information on our website or travel to our office to look at it, we can provide alternative arrangements and formats for you.

For example, you can call or email us to ask for paper copies to be posted to you, but we might need to charge you for this.

Once information is published on our website we’ll continue to make it available for two financial years, but if information is updated or becomes inaccurate then only the most recent version will be available.

You can request to see previous versions of information by contacting us, although we may charge to provide you with previously unpublished information.

How do I ask for information or get help with accessing it?

If you want to see information that we have that is not published on our website, you should make your request in a form that leaves a record. That includes any written request – by letter, email or through social media. Your request must include:

  • your full name (usually a first name, or initial, and a surname)
  • contact details so we can respond (an email address will do)
  • a description of the information you would like us to provide.

You can send your request to us by email, Twitter or Facebook, or by post to:

Children and Young People’s Commmissioner Scotland
Bridgeside House
99 McDonald Road
Edinburgh
EH7 4NS

You can also contact us for advice and help with finding information. If you’d prefer to call us, our number is 0131 346 5350 and our Young People’s Freephone is 0800 019 1179.

What information don’t we publish?

If a document contains information that is exempt from Scotland’s freedom of information laws – like sensitive personal information, or trade secrets – we’ll remove or black out the information before publishing it. When we do this, we will explain why.

Classes of information held

We will publish the information we hold that falls within the classes of information below.

Class 1: About the Children and Young People’s Commissioner

Information about the Commissioner and their office: who we are, where to find us, how to contact us, how we are managed and our relations with others.

Information about our office

This includes:

How to contact us

This includes:

How we’re governed and how we’re accountable

This includes:

How we keep people informed

This includes:

Class 2: Our functions and services

Information about our work, our strategy and policies for fulfilling our duties, and information for everyone who benefits when our duties are fulfilled.

Workplans and annual reports

These include:

Information around our duty: Reviewing law, policy and practice of children’s rights

This includes:

Information around our duty: Promoting awareness and understanding of children’s rights

This includes:

Information around our duty: Providing advice and carrying out investigations

This includes:

Class 3: How we take decisions

Information about the decisions we take and how these are made, as well as how we involve others in decisions.

This includes:

Consultation

This includes information about our Strategic Plan, for which we consulted children, young people and organisations.

Class 4: What we spend and how we spend it

Information about how we manage our finances, in enough detail to explain how we plan to spend public money and how we’ve spent this money up to now.

Budget and expenditure

This includes our annual accounts, and additional financial information available in our annual report.

Financial accountability

This includes:

Contracts and procurement

This includes:

  • current invitations to tender;
  • the Commissioner’s procurement policy, including how they pay suppliers and manage contract performance.

Class 5: How we manage our resources

Managing information

Information about how the Commissioner manages people, information and physical resources.

This includes:

Environmental sustainability

We recognise our activities may have both positive and negative impacts on the environment, both in Scotland and elsewhere in the world. Steps we’ve taken around environmental sustainability include:

  • encouraging staff to use public transport when that’s practical,
  • being fully compliant with the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012,
  • having a separate weekly collection for dry recyclable waste,
  • getting monthly sustainability reports that let us measure our progress and understand where we can do better.

Community empowerment

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 exists to help communities do more for themselves and have more say in the decisions that affect them.

Community Transfer Bodies can request the transfer of property from a public body – like ourselves – where they feel they could use the property better. They can apply to purchase, lease or request rights in respect of land and buildings owned or leased by public bodies. 

The Commissioner leases one property: a ground floor office in Bridgeside House, 99 McDonald Road, Edinburgh, EH7 4NS. 

If your Community Transfer Body wishes to make an asset transfer request, we recommend that you contact our office at an early stage so that we can discuss your proposals.

Our contact details are:

Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland
Bridgeside House
99 McDonald Road
Edinburgh: EH7 4NS

Tel: 0131 346 5350

Email: info@cypcs.org.uk

We recommend you read the Scottish Government guidance for community bodies to help find out what the process of making an asset transfer request involves. 

Class 6: How we procure goods and services

Information about how we procure – buy and have access to – goods and services, and information about our contracts with those outside the office who provide us with goods and services.

This includes:

Class 7: How we are performing

Information about how well the Commissioner delivers their function to promote and safeguard the rights of children and young people.

Annual reporting

This includes our annual report and annual accounts.

Auditing our performance

This includes information about the Advisory Audit Board.

Class 8: Our commercial publications

Class 8 lists information we sell for money. We don’t sell any of the information we publish for money, so there’s nothing to put under this class.

Class 9: Our open data

Open data is data we’ve made available as described by Scottish Government’s Open Data Resource Pack and made available under an open license.

What can I do with information from the Commissioner and their office?

We encourage you to use and re-use public information which we hold copyright to as long as:

  • it’s accurately copied or reproduced,
  • it’s not used in a misleading way,
  • you identify the Commissioner as the source of the material.

We’ll make it clear where the Commissioner doesn’t hold copyright of information published by them or their office.

Will it cost me money to access information?

Published information

There’s no charge for viewing our information on this website or in our office. If you want us to provide you with a physical version of published information, we may charge you for what it costs to create and send it— so we might charge you to cover postage costs or the cost of photocopying. But we won’t charge you more than it costs us to create and send the information, and we’ll tell you how much this cost will be before sending information to you.

Our charges are 5p per side for A4 and A3 printing and photocopying.

We will recharge any postage costs at the rate we paid to send the information to you. When providing copies of pre-printed publications, we’ll charge no more than the cost per copy of the total print run.

Unpublished information

We may charge for unpublished information provided in response to a request for it. Charges apply as follows:

  • Where it would cost us £100 or less to provide the information to you, no charge will be made. 
  • If it costs between £100 and £600 to provide the information, we may ask you to pay 10% of that part of the cost. For example, if it costs us £600, then we may charge up to £50 (as the first £100 costs you nothing, and £50 is 10% of the remaining £500.)

We’ll tell you first if we need to make a charge for providing unpublished information, and it will be sent to you after you’ve paid.

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