Our FOI Playbook
FOI’s are a powerful, yet little used, tool to find out information in the public sector. They were designed to give the public transparency and confidence in public sector spending, but can also be used to gain competitive advantage in tendering, if used correctly, to help you build a healthy public sector pipeline.
Here’s our playbook to using FOI’s successfully.
Step 1: Setting up an email address
Create an email address using Gmail / Hotmail / Outlook that’s not obviously related to you or your business.
Step 2: Create a free account on What Do They Know (WDTK)
Use this email address (and a pseudonym) to sign up to What Do They Know (WDTK) to send FOI’s, it’s free and easy to use. They’ve sourced all the email addresses for public sector FOI teams making it a simple 4 click process to send.
Top tip – WDTK is well used in the public sector as a tool to manage and respond to FOIs themselves so you’re making their lives easier sending it this way.
Step 3: Creating an FOI template
Unsuccessful FOI requests have two things in common – they either ask for too much information, or they ask for commercially sensitive information in the wrong way. See the Appendices below for our two FOI templates.
Step 4: Sending your first FOI
Click “Make a request” -> Type the name of the Buyer and click “Search” -> Click “Make a request” on the relevant Buyer -> Using the relevant template, add the name of your FOI request -> Using the relevant template, add the content of your request -> Click “Next step: Preview your public request” –> Check everything look right -> Click “Send and publish request”
Step 5: Wait
The Authority has 3 working days to confirm receipt of your FOI, and another 20 working days to provide the requested information. When there area updates WDTK will alert you via email so you don’t need to check back to look for updates.
Step 6: Using your new intelligence correctly
When you submit an FOI request, the response you receive will include input from both the procurement team and the end stakeholders. That means the information you’ve received has been carefully sourced and reviewed, so use it thoughtfully and strategically. Responding to your FOI request may have meant the procurement team and end stakeholders had to pause their busy schedules, peppered with reminders by the FOI team about the looming legal deadlines. So, when you receive that valuable insight, use it with care and professionalism, rather than diving straight in and broadcasting the information not logged in your CRM.
If they’ve just extended the contract, you’re too late, but it’s not all bad news – ask them why? Did procurement extend it without asking the end stakeholder and they’ve been burdened with an underperforming supplier for another year? Or, could they not find a suitable supplier to solve their real problem and so stuck with the old ‘it ain’t broke, so why fix it’.
If not, they’re probably having conversations internally about whether or not to take the extension and you could be the ‘knight in shining armour’ showing up at the right time, and in the right place to help.
As with any good cold outreach, make it about them. Highlight the research you’ve done, the problem/ challenge you think they have, giving examples of how you’ve solved it with similar Buyers and show intent in working with them to better understand their challenges, along with a willingness to co-design a solution to help solve them.
It’s also good to understand how competitive the last procurement exercise was. Are all those suppliers still in business? Will they also be going for this new opportunity? Have any of them changed their offering and are now more competitive this time around?
It’s crucial to have these questions in the back of your mind when speaking with the buying team and solution engineering the future requirements, what are your USP’s, and what are their weaknesses – how can we shape the requirement so we have a higher likelihood of winning the tender and deliver a positive outcome for the Buyer?
FOI’s should be used as a last resort as they can be time consuming and the scope is limited. They can be refused if the cost of compliance exceeds limits, the information is commercially sensitive or if it involves personal data or national security.
Better alternatives exist, before submitting an FOI you can try:
Public sector procurement teams have a duty of care to spend taxpayer money effectively and efficiently and should as part of their procurement process undertake thorough market research so by being proactive in your engagement you can support their process in helping to find a supplier to provide the most Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) as per the new PA23 guidelines.
Appendices
Appendix 1 – FOI Templates
Use this template where there is a known contract in place:
Summary: FOI Request – Waste Disposal Project Agreement
Your Request:
Dear FOI Team,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know details in respect to the contract below.
[Add contract / service name here] – [Add URL to tender/ award notice]
Eg. “Waste Disposal Project Agreement” – https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/004337-2023
I would like to know the following details:
Thank you for your support with my request.
Yours sincerely
[Insert pseudonym name]
Use this template where there is no known contract in place and we’re trying to find off contract information:
Summary: FOI Request – Spend on seagull deterrents
Your Request:
Dear FOI Team,
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to know details in respect to spend on the items below
[Add product / service / works name here]
The details I require are:
Thank you for your support with my request.
Yours sincerely
[Insert pseudonym name]
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