Subject Access Request to Leeds City Council

One route covers every service, which is unusual for a council this size and makes the specificity your job. Leeds publishes its subject access route once, on a council-wide page, and none of its service privacy notices — children and families, adult social care, council housing, council tax, school admissions — sets up an address, mailbox or form of its own. So nothing is sorted for you by which address you picked: say which service, roughly which years, and any reference number you have. The council's own page is clear that no route is compulsory: "The right of access can be exercised verbally, or in writing (by post or email), as well as by filling in the council's individual rights request form", so a letter is as valid as the form. The online form needs a working email address; if you do not have one, the council says you can take your identification to a community hub, which will also help you fill the form in. Two things can send a Leeds request to the wrong desk, and both are on the council's own pages. The adult social care and council housing privacy notices say you may exercise your rights "by writing to us, using the contact details provided below" — and the details below are that service's general enquiry mailbox and the Data Protection Officer's, not the information rights team's. The DPO's mailbox handles data protection questions and complaints; the information rights address above is the one the council designates for making the request. Leeds also runs three addresses within a mile of each other: Civic Hall on Calverley Street is the council's registered and general address, Merrion House on Merrion Way is the Data Protection Officer's, and only the PO Box above is the information rights post point. Requesting CCTV of yourself is the one thing here with a clock on it. Leeds says it "usually keep[s] CCTV footage for 31 days", and asks you to email the information rights mailbox with the specific area you were in, the date and time you were there, proof of your identity and a description of yourself. Three limits it publishes in the same place: it does not release CCTV for parking tickets and says to speak to whoever issued the ticket; it does not release footage of other people to the public, so if the police are investigating they request it directly and if they are not, an insurer or solicitor has to ask on your behalf and pay for it; and it will not say where its cameras are, citing section 31 of the Freedom of Information Act. If the police were involved, that force holds its own separate file — for Leeds that is West Yorkshire Police, and the council's own CCTV page sends you to them. For a social care file, ask whether you need the formal route at all. Leeds's children's social work procedures tell staff that where somebody currently receiving services wants a document, the social worker "should discuss this with them to see whether the request can be dealt with informally by showing them the relevant part of the file or providing a copy of relevant documents". The same procedures describe a file being read with you rather than posted to you: "A social worker/local authority case worker should be available to explain the contents of the file, to answer questions and to help the person understand the information recorded", with interpreters and alternative formats where language, literacy or disability require them. What social services records contain and what a council can hold back covers what to expect in the file itself. If you were in care in Leeds, the record should still exist. The council's procedures say "a child's case record must be kept until the 75th anniversary of the child's date of birth", that it will look for registers from children's homes as well as case files, and that where records cannot be found or have been destroyed you must be told as soon as possible and helped to look elsewhere, such as health and education records. Formal photographic identification can be waived: "if the person is already known to the service it is a service decision if the proof of formal ID is required." Leeds states the limits on a care file in its own words, and one of them is not in most councils' published guidance. Beyond the social work serious-harm test, its procedures name a separate exemption for child abuse data, which applies "if the application of that provision would not be in the best interests of the data subject", and an exemption where information "was given by the data subject in the expectation that it would not be disclosed". Set against that: "These exemptions do not justify the total withholding of information but only those records/parts of records which are covered by the exemptions. The remainder of the case records should be made available to the data subject." The exemptions also do not apply "where disclosure is required by a court order or is necessary for the purpose of or in connection with any legal proceedings". Council tax has its own carve-out, stated plainly: "We do not have to give you information that would prejudice us in assessing or collecting Council Tax." The council also lists disciplinary proceedings against its staff, investigations into misconduct by councillors, confidential references, legal advice, and information already public such as planning applications, as things it may withhold. Anything about how the council makes decisions generally, rather than about you, is a Freedom of Information request — and the same online form takes those. Three things about the deadline are worth knowing before you count the days. The council publishes one month "although this can be extended by a further 2 months if the request is complex or we have received a number of requests from you". Its children's procedures start that month at the point identity is confirmed rather than at the point you asked, so sending identification with the request is what starts the clock, and they put a ceiling on the extension: a further two months, "making a maximum total of 3 months", and you must be told of the delay within the first month with the reasons explained. And if you are unhappy with the answer, the council will review it but says "there is no statutory requirement to carry out an internal review" — so an internal review is a courtesy here, not a step you have to exhaust. If a reply arrives and you cannot tell whether it is complete, our free response checker will show you what is missing. A request about someone who has died is not a subject access request, because the right of access covers living people. Leeds does publish a discretionary route for social care records: it asks the applicant "to explain in writing their relationship to the deceased person, what information is needed and why", and a case worker decides in consultation with a manager and replies in writing with reasons. There is no statutory deadline for that decision, and it is not something a subject access request can compel. School records are the one place where the council is probably not who you want. Leeds is the education authority and its own School Admissions privacy notice makes the council the controller for the admissions service, so admissions casework is a request to Leeds. A school's own pupil file is a different question: the school or academy trust is usually its own controller, and that request goes to the school rather than to the council. Which records sit with the school and which with the council sorts out the three possible holders.

Made under UK GDPR Article 15, subject to the social work exemption in Schedule 3, Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018

Councils hold an unusually wide spread of personal data across services that rarely talk to each other: children's and adult social care, housing and homelessness, council tax and benefits, planning, licensing, education, and complaints. A request that does not say which service you mean tends to be routed to one department and answered narrowly.

Social care files are the most commonly requested and the most heavily redacted. They are written by multiple professionals about multiple people, so a child protection or adult safeguarding file will contain a great deal of information about family members and reporting parties. Schedule 3, Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 also allows a council to withhold social work data where disclosure would be likely to prejudice the carrying out of social work by causing serious harm.

Naming the service, the approximate dates and any reference number you have is worth more here than in any other category. It is the difference between a targeted file and a generic council tax printout.

• Children's services and social care case files
• Adult safeguarding records
• Housing applications, homelessness decisions and disrepair reports
• Council tax and housing benefit records
• Complaint files and internal correspondence about you

Deadline. An organisation must respond without undue delay and within one month. It may extend by up to two further months where the request is complex or you have made a number of requests, but it must tell you within the first month that it is doing so, and why.

Cost. There is normally no fee. A reasonable fee may only be charged where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, or where you ask for further copies.

Proving who you are. An organisation may ask you to verify your identity, but only where it has reasonable doubts about who you are, and it should ask for the minimum needed. Where it needs further information to deal with your request, the one-month clock pauses until you provide it.

How hard they have to look. An organisation has to carry out a reasonable and proportionate search — not an exhaustive one. What counts as reasonable depends on the volume of information, the difficulty of locating it, and the size and resources of the organisation. This is a common reason for a partial response, and it is worth being specific about what you want.

If they ignore you. Complain to the organisation first. Since 19 June 2026 every organisation has had a legal duty to give you a clear way to raise a data protection complaint, to acknowledge it within 30 days, to look into it properly and to tell you the outcome. If it does not, or the answer is incomplete, you can then complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.