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Corporate information pages

Publication scheme

A publication scheme lists the classes of information that the organisation makes available. Most government organisations are required to have a publication scheme.

Publication schemes follow a template set by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Use the text included in the next section and where appropriate:

  • add in your organisation’s name or acronym
  • replace the links with the relevant link for your organisation (this includes links to external URLs and links to filtered search pages)
  • create documents or document collections and add links to them

You can make small changes to the text and add or delete links and categories where these apply to your organisation.

When you create a publication scheme, a link to it will appear automatically in the ‘Corporate information’ section on your organisation and ‘About us’ pages.

Publication scheme template

This publication scheme specifies the categories of information that the department and its agencies regularly publish and explains how to get that information.

You can find specific documents for this department using the publication search.

If the information you want is not routinely published, you can make a request for it under the Freedom of Information Act.

You can also search through previous responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests (or amend this filtered search so it returns results for your organisation alone).

Who we are and what we do

This information covers our organisational details, structures, locations and contacts.

This includes:

  • our [organisational structure, roles and responsibilities] (link to your organisation page)
  • a [department organisational chart] (link to an organogram page if you have one)
  • [details of our ministers’ meetings with external organisations] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • [details of senior staff’s meetings with external organisations] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • [details of special advisers’ meetings with external organisations] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • information about the [organisations the department is responsible for, works in partnership with, or sponsors]
  • legislation relevant to our functions
  • our answers to Parliamentary Questions on the Parliament website
  • [our location and contact details]

What we spend and how we spend it

This is where we publish financial information about projected and actual income, expenditure, procurement, contracts and financial audits. This includes:

  • [departmental financial statements, budgets and variance reports], published by HM Treasury
  • [department spending for transactions over £25,000] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • [any contracts and tenders worth over £10,000] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • [any government procurement card spend over £500] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • our [capital programme] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • our [spending reviews] (create your own document collection or filtered search to link to it)
  • the financial audit reports published by the National Audit Office
  • our [ministers’ allowances and expenses] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • our [senior staff and board members’ allowances and expenses] (create your own document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • our [senior staff pay and grading structures] (link directly to these on GOV.UK, or to relevant data.gov information)
  • our [junior staff pay and grading structures] (link directly to these on GOV.UK, or to relevant data.gov information)
  • our [senior advisers’ salaries and salary ranges] (link directly to these on GOV.UK, or to relevant data.gov information)
  • our [procurement procedures] (link to your procurement page)
  • our [financial statements for projects and events] (remove this if not applicable, or create a collection to collate these and link to them)
  • [internal financial regulations]

What our priorities are and how we’re doing

This category covers departmental strategies and plans, performance indicators, audits, inspections and reviews, including:

  • our [open data strategy]
  • our [strategic plans] (link directly to the latest of these, or to a document collection collating them)
  • our current [business plan] (link to your latest annual report)
  • our [annual report] (link to your latest annual report, or to a document collection collating your annual reports)
  • [internal and external performance reviews] (create one or more document collections collating your performance reviews)
  • [departmental performance reports to Parliament] (create a document collection to collate these and link to it)
  • our [inspection reports] (create a document collection to collate these and then link to it)
  • the [impact assessments] we have made (create and link to a document collection or a filtered search)
  • the [privacy impact assessments] we have made (create and link to a document collection or a filtered search)
  • our [service standards] (link to your service standards publication or collection collating them)
  • [statistics] produced by the department (link to your statistics page)

How we make decisions

This is where we publish details of our decision-making processes and records of our decisions. These include:

Our policies and procedures

This category covers our protocols, policies and procedures for providing services, and responsibilities, including:

  • [how we conduct departmental business]
  • [delivering our services] (possibly a single document, or create a document collection to link to - this could be combined with ‘customer service standards’, below)
  • [recruiting and employing staff] (link to your ‘Working for’ page)
  • [customer service standards] (possibly a single publication, or create a collection of these to link to)
  • [records management and personal data policies] (link to your personal information charter)
  • [charging regimes and policies] (include a link to this if details are not already covered within the detail on the publication scheme page itself)

Lists and registers

Publish details of the department’s public registers, asset registers and disclosure logs, including:

  • our [public registers and registers held as public records]
  • the department’s [asset registers and information asset register]
  • CCTV
  • the department’s [disclosure logs] listing all FOI requests received
  • the [register of gifts] (these could be multiple links to multiple collections covering ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers separately)
  • a list of ministers’ interests in the department’s [register of interests]

Services we offer (optional)

Information about the services the department provides including leaflets, guidance and newsletters:

  • [regulatory responsibilities] (usually a single document with acronym)
  • [services for public authorities] (create a document collection with acronym)
  • [services for industry] (create a document collection with acronym)
  • [services for other organisations] (create a document collection with acronym)
  • [services for the public] (create a document collection with acronym)
  • [fee-based services] (create a document collection with acronym)
  • [circulars] (create a document collection with acronym, or a named series which would not need an acronym)
  • [leaflets, booklets and newsletters]