RTI applications, reply, appeal

Your society's redevelopment file sits in a municipal office. Residents have asked for months what has been sanctioned and nobody will say. Any citizen can ask for that file in writing, without giving a reason, and the office must answer in a fixed time. This is the Right to Information Act 2005. A badly drafted application gets a vague answer or a rejection. A well drafted one gets the documents. How do you write the application, read the reply, and appeal if it is refused?

In two minutes

Under the Right to Information Act 2005 a citizen applies in writing or electronically to the Public Information Officer of a public authority, without giving reasons (s.6); the officer must decide within thirty days (s.7); a first appeal lies to a senior officer within thirty days (s.19(1)) and a second appeal to the Information Commission within ninety days (s.19(3)).

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