Publication Scheme

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is committed to open government and the proactive release of the information it holds under the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA).

What is a Publication Scheme?

Every public authority subject to the Freedom of Information Act is required to adopt and maintain a publication scheme setting out what information will routinely be made available, how the information can be accessed and whether or not the information is free of charge.

The idea of a publication scheme is to try and make sure as much information as possible is freely available and easy to access so you do not need to make a specific request.

The Authority has adopted the Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO’s) model publication scheme. The scheme consists of information already published and held by the Authority or information which is to be published in the future. All information in our publication scheme is either available for you on our website to download and print off, or is available in traditional document form. Information within the publication scheme will be available either free, or at a charge.

Some information may not be made available when:

we do not hold the information
the information is exempt from disclosure
we cannot easily access the information

What Classes of Information Do We Publish?

The ICO’s model publication scheme identifies classes of information, which are as follows:

Who we are and what we do

What we spend and how we spend it

What our priorities are and how we are doing

How we make decisions (Committees external website)

The services we offer

The GMCA is required to specify the information which it holds and which falls within those categories of information and has produced a simple guide which lists the specific information it publishes within each of the above classes.

The Publication Scheme is divided into sections based on the classes of information.