I’ve written about this oddity before, but thought it was worth saying it again, because it can catch the *cough cough* best of us out. The oddity being that a bank holiday falling in any part of the United Kingdom counts as a non-working-day for the purposes of FOIA. So, as January 2nd (or the nearest substitute day) is a bank holiday in Scotland, it is not a working day for the purposes of calculating the maximum timescale for compliance with a request made under FOIA, despite the fact that Scotland has its own Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
What “bank holiday” means, according to section 10(6) of FOIA, is
any day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a day which is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in any part of the United Kingdom
And section 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 says
the days specified in Schedule 1 to this Act shall be bank holidays in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland as indicated in the Schedule
The Schedule therefore provides a number of dates which are to be considered as bank holidays
All straightforward then? Not quite. Sections 1(2) and 1(3) of The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 also provide that the Queen can effectively remove or add a bank holiday “by proclamation”.
As the London Gazette records, on 23 July 2021 a proclamation was made by Her Majesty, providing that
We in pursuance of section 1(3) of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, do hereby appoint …Tuesday the twelfth day of July in the year 2022 to be a bank holiday in Northern Ireland
So those calculating when FOI responses to requests made in recent weeks are due, will need to factor in this extra day.
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