Lews Castle College was established in September 1953 as the only further education establishment in the Western Isles. The principal subjects offered at that time were navigation and textiles, but these have expanded over the past 56 years to its current portfolio of courses ranging from school classes through National Certificate, Higher National Certificate and Diploma level to first degree, honours degree and postgraduate/research level. As a partner college of the UHI Millennium Institute (UHI),  the College has led development and delivery of degrees in Rural Development, Rural Health and Computing, the Masters Degree in Professional Development and the MA Health & Wellbeing. Lews Castle College’s main Centres in Benbecula and Barra, together with others dispersed throughout the Western Isles, enable students in the more remote parts of these islands to participate in a wide range of learning opportunities, using the latest ICT facilities, including Blackboard, and video- and audio-conferencing.

Lews Castle College (Trading) Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of the College and has a commercial function. It was incorporated on 17 August 1993 and its main source of income is from Gaelic translation work. Greenspace Research Limited was incorporated on 10 April 2007 as a subsidiary of Lews Castle College. The company is primarily concerned with software consultancy and supply relating to energy efficiency in buildings. It has two subsidiary companies, Greenspace Live Limited and Live EPC Limited with similar energy related functions.

When preparing or reviewing our publication scheme, we are obliged by FOISA to have due regard to the public interest in providing access to the information that we hold which relates to:

•        the services we provide;

•        the costs of those services;

•        the standard of those services;

•         the facts that inform the decisions we take which are of importance to the public; and

•        the reasoning that informs our decisions.

In preparing this publication scheme Lews Castle College has consulted with the Association of Scottish Colleges, UHI and academic partners in order to provide information in a readily accessible format, so that enquirers can access it, as far as possible without recourse to individual application.

Information available under our publication scheme will normally be available through the routes described below.  Section 12 – Classes of Information provides more details on the information available under the scheme, along with additional guidance on how the information falling within each “class” may be accessed.

Online: 

Most information listed in our publication scheme is available to download from our website.  In many cases a link within Section 12: Classes of Information will direct you to the relevant page or document.  Where no such link is present, you can use our website’s “Search” facility at  

All information covered by our publication scheme can either be accessed through our website or will be provided promptly following receipt of your request.

Our aim in maintaining this publication scheme is to be as open as possible.  You should note, however, that there may be limited circumstances where information will be withheld from one of the classes of information listed in Section 12 – Classes of Information.  Information will only be withheld, however, where FOISA (or, in the case of environmental information, the EIRs) expressly permits it.

Information may be withheld, for example, where its disclosure would breach the law of confidentiality, harm an organisation’s commercial interests, or endanger the protection of the environment.  Information may also be withheld if it is another person’s personal information, and its release would breach data protection legislation.   Whenever information is withheld we will inform you of this, and will set out why that information cannot be released. Even where the document containing the information cannot be released, it may, in many cases, be possible to provide copies with the withheld information edited out.

All information contained within our scheme is available from us free of charge where it can be downloaded from our website or where it can be sent to you electronically by email.

We reserve the right to impose charges for providing information in paper copy or on computer disc.  Charges will reflect the actual costs to the College of reproduction and postage, as set out below.

In the event that a charge is to be levied, you will be advised of the charge and how it has been calculated.  Information will not be provided to you until payment has been received.

Reproduction costs:

Where charges are applied, photocopied information will be charged at a standard rate of 10p per A4 side of paper (black and white copy) and 30p per A4 side of paper (colour copy).

Computer discs will be charged at the rate of £1.00 per CD-Rom.

Postage cost:

We will pass on postage charges to the requester at the cost to the authority of sending the information by first class post.

Lews Castle College holds the copyright for the vast majority of information in this publication scheme.  All of this information can be copied or reproduced without our formal permission, provided it is copied or reproduced accurately, is not used in a misleading context, and provided that the source of the material is identified.

The publication scheme may, however, contain information where the copyright holder is not Lews Castle College. In most cases the copyright holder will be obvious from the documents.  In cases where the copyright is unclear, however, it is the responsibility of the person accessing the information to locate and seek the permission of the copyright holder before reproducing the material or in any other way breaching the rights of the copyright holder.  Wherever possible, this scheme will indicate where we do not own the copyright on documents within Section 12 – Classes of Information.

Information about Crown copyright material is available on the website of the Queens Printer for Scotland at www.oqps.gov.uk.  We can provide you with a copy of this information if you do not have internet access.

FOISA requires that we review our publication scheme from time to time.  As a result, we welcome feedback on how we can develop our publication scheme further.  If you would to comment on any aspect of this publication scheme, then please contact us.  You may, for example wish to tell us about:

•        other information that you would like to see included in the publication scheme;

•        whether you found the publication scheme easy to use;

•        whether you found the publication scheme useful;

•        whether our staff were helpful;

•        other ways in which our publication scheme can be improved.

Our aim is to make our publication scheme as user-friendly as possible, and we hope that you can access all the information we publish with ease.   If you do wish to complain about any aspect of the publication scheme, however, then please contact us, and we will try and resolve your complaint as quickly as possible.  You can contact:

The Principal, Mr David R Green at 01851 770221 or

Mrs Sandra McCall at 01851 770245

Any complaint will be acknowledged within two working days of receipt and we will respond in full within twenty working days. 

You have legal rights to access information under FOISA and EIRs and a right of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with our response.  These rights apply only to information requests made in writing* or another recordable format.  If you are unhappy with our responses to your request you can ask us to review it and if you are still unhappy, you can make an appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner.

The Commissioner’s website has a guide to this three step process, and he operates an enquiry service on Monday to Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.  His office can be contacted as follows:

Scottish Information Commissioner

Kinburn Castle

Doubledykes Road

St Andrews

Fife

KY16 9DS

Tel:              01334 464610

Email:           enquiries@itspublicknowledge.info

Website:        www.itspublicknowledge.info

*verbal requests for environmental information are acceptable.

11.  HOW TO ACCESS INFORMATION WHICH IS NOT AVAILABLE UNDER THIS SCHEME

If the information you are seeking is not available under this publication scheme, then you may wish to request it from us.  FOISA provides you with a right of access to the information we hold, subject to certain exemptions.  EIRs separately provide a right of access to the environmental information we hold, while the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) provides a right of access to any personal information about you that we hold. Again, these rights are subject to certain exceptions or exemptions.

Should you wish to request a copy of any information that we hold that is not available under this publication scheme, please write to Mrs Sandra McCall, Lews Castle College, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, HS2 0XR. 

Charges for information not available under the publication scheme:

The charges for information which is available under this scheme are set out under Section 6 – Our Charging Policy.  If you submit a request to us for information which is not available under this publication scheme the charges will be based on the following calculations:

General information requests:

• There will be no charge for information requests which cost us £100 or less to process.

• Where information costs between £100 and £600 to provide you may be asked to pay 10% of the cost. That is, if you were to ask for information that cost us £600 to provide, you would be asked to pay £50, calculated on the basis of a waiver for the first £100 and 10% of the remaining £500.

• We are not obliged to respond to requests which will cost us over £600 to process.

• In calculating any fee, staff time will be calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour.

• We do not charge for the time used to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. However charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you.

• In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge (a fees notice) and how it has been calculated. You will have three months from the date of issue of the fees notice in which to decide whether to pay the charge. The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you.

Charges for environmental information:

We do not charge for the time spent to determine whether we hold the information requested, nor for the time it takes to decide whether the information can be released. However charges may be made for locating, retrieving and providing information to you.

In the event that we decide to impose a charge we will issue you with notification of the charge (a fees notice) and how it has been calculated. You will have 60 working days from the date of issue of the fees notice in which to decide whether to pay the charge.  The information will be provided to you on payment of the charge. If you decide not to proceed with the request there will be no charge to you.

Charges are calculated on the basis of the actual cost to the authority of providing the information.

• Photocopying is charged at 10p per A4 sheet for black and white copying, 30p per A4 sheet for colour copying.

• Postage is charged at actual rate for first class mail.

• Staff time is calculated at actual cost per staff member hourly salary rate to a maximum of £15 per person per hour.

Requests for your own personal data: No charge will be made for providing this data.

1        INTRODUCTION

2        GENERAL INFORMATION

3        ACCESS TO INFORMATION

4        GOVERNANCE

5        FINANCIAL RESOURCES

6        CORPORATE PLANNING

7        PROCUREMENT

8        HUMAN RESOURCES

9        PHYSICAL RESOURCES

10      HEALTH AND SAFETY

11      DIVERSITY

12      STUDENT ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT

13      TEACHING QUALITY

14      INFORMATION SERVICES

15      EXTERNAL AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS

16      GOVERNMENT AND REGULATOR RELATIONS

17      ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION