FOI work involves decisions: who owns the request, what information is held, whether clarification is needed, which exemptions are considered, who approved the response, and when the applicant was contacted.
Decisions should be explainable later
The Section 45 Code of Practice provides guidance on good request-handling practice for public authorities. In practical terms, teams need a process that makes decisions and handoffs understandable after the event.
Phanera helps by keeping request activity, comments, status changes, assignments, and response work together. That gives staff and managers a clearer picture of what happened and why.
- Record who owns the request.
- Keep assignment and department changes visible.
- Track status changes and key dates.
- Keep response drafting and review activity connected to the case.
- Make handovers easier when staff are unavailable.
How Phanera helps
Phanera provides an audit-friendly request history so teams can understand progress, decisions, and accountability without searching through scattered inboxes.
Audit trails are also operational tools
An audit trail is not only useful when something goes wrong. It also helps managers understand workload, spot repeated bottlenecks, and improve the process over time.
When the request history is easy to follow, teams can spend less time reconstructing events and more time producing clear, timely responses.