FOISA 2002 · 20 working day statutory deadline
Most FOI requests aren't new. Your process should know that.
ClearFOI checks every request against what's already been published. A match gets an instant, sourced response. Anything new gets triaged, drafted, and tracked against the statutory clock — ready for an officer to approve.
Officers approve every response before it's sent. ClearFOI drafts — it never decides.
98,017
FOI requests a year, across every Scottish public body
4.2 hrs
average officer time invested per AI-generated request
The problem
Nobody budgeted for this much repetition
Most public bodies have one to three people covering information governance. A meaningful share of what lands in that inbox is a question you've already answered, sometimes more than once. That's before AI-generated volume even enters the picture — and it does, at scale your team was never resourced for.
| Per AI-generated request | Without ClearFOI | With ClearFOI |
|---|---|---|
| Reading, classifying and routing | 45 min | 0 min |
| Clarification drafting | 30 min | 5 min |
| Response drafting | 75 min | 20 min |
| Review, approve and send | 25 min | 25 min, unchanged |
| Total officer time | 4.2 hrs | ~1.5 hrs |
Foisa day tracker
Day 6 of 20 working days
Day 6 of 20, request received and classified automatically
Officer review window open.
Figures drawn from the OSIC 2024-25 Annual Report. Time estimates are sector averages and will vary by body and case complexity.
How it works
Two paths from the same starting point
Request arrives
Logged automatically the moment it's submitted, no manual entry.
ClearFOI checks it against what's already public
Matched against previous disclosures and published responses in seconds.
Already answered
Instant response drafted
A sourced reply pointing to the existing published answer, ready for an officer to send.
Genuinely new
Full triage runs
Legislation checked, AI-generation likelihood flagged as context, and a FOISA-compliant draft prepared.
Officer decides
Approve, edit, or escalate. Nothing is sent without a human confirming it first. The statutory clock is tracked from the moment the request landed, not from when someone gets to it.
Foisa day tracker
Day 14 of 20 working days
Day 14 of 20, draft approved and issued by the duty officer
Six working days still in hand before the statutory deadline.
This is what releases officers from typing and gives them back the time for judgement.
Live demo
Sixty seconds to see the full triage
Walk one request from arrival to approved draft: the AI-likelihood score, the exemptions checked, the response text and the point where an officer takes over.
Opens the interactive prototype in a new tab. No sign-up required.
Compliance
Built to meet the law, not shortcut it
Human review always
An officer approves every response. ClearFOI prepares work, it does not release information.
Full audit trail
Every classification, draft and edit is recorded with a timestamp and the officer who made it.
Statutory timeline tracking
The 20 working day clock is tracked per request, with warnings before a deadline is at risk.
No black-box decisions
Every suggestion shows the exemption, the reasoning and the source text it was drawn from.
About
Built by someone who understands how public bodies adopt technology
ClearFOI was built by someone who has spent their career working alongside Scottish public sector teams on how technology actually gets adopted: the procurement route, the information governance sign-off, the training, and the day the system meets a real caseload.
It is supported by Bield, a separate consultancy. ClearFOI is a product, not a consultancy engagement: it is designed to work inside an existing team without a change programme wrapped around it.
Contact
Get in touch
Tell us what you're up against and we'll arrange a short call to show you how ClearFOI would handle your FOI queue.