Publication scheme

Each government department has a publication scheme, which makes information available to the public about how it operates and how it spends its budget.


The Freedom of Information Act asks government departments and other public bodies to make as much information as possible available to the public.

Under the act, we must have a publication scheme that tells you the information we regularly make available.

The publication scheme specifies the categories (or ‘classes’) of information that we publish and explains how to get that information.

You don’t need to make a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the information listed below; it’s free from this website.

Who we are and what we do

This class of information includes details of:

What we spend and how we spend it

This class includes details of:

How we make decisions

This includes information about contracts and tenders (transparency data).

What our priorities are and how we are doing

This includes our single departmental plan, listing our objectives and our progress towards them.

Our policies and procedures

This includes our annual report showing our equality and diversity policies.

Our obligations

Section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act requires the Wales Office to adopt and maintain a publication scheme, to routinely make information available to the public.

The publication scheme must specify:

  • the information we will routinely publish
  • how this information will be published
  • whether the information is available free of charge or on payment

We generally won’t publish information that is:

  • protected from disclosure
  • in draft form
  • no longer readily available

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) model publication scheme has been developed to encourage greater openness and transparency, to increase awareness and improve proactive publication. You can find information about the model publication scheme on the ICO website.