Principle of public access to official documents to be introduced for independent schools
Published:
The Riksdag voted in favour of the Government’s proposal that the principle of public access to official documents be introduced for independent pre-schools, independent schools and independent out-of-school centres.
The proposal is intended to ensure that opportunities for transparency are the same for all bodies that organise education, and primarily involves the following:
- the right to access official documents will apply to legal entities that are individual organising bodies within the education system;
- such organising bodies will be equated with public agencies in the application of the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act and certain secrecy provisions that therefore will apply to these organising bodies so that secrecy does not obstruct access to information about the education system;
- smaller organising bodies will be permitted to apply rules involving certain relaxations regarding the handling of official documents. This will apply to organising bodies with a maximum of 450 children and pupils, or if they only have independent pre-schools, a maximum of 100 children, or are included in a group of companies where the companies together have this number of children or pupils;
- the provisions of the Archives Act regarding the archives of municipal authorities will apply to the individual organising bodies, with the exception of smaller organising bodies, which, as a rule, will be required to keep official documents for a minimum of seven years;
- during the first two years after the introduction, all legal entities that are individual organising bodies in the education system will be able to apply simplified rules.
The new rules will come into force on 1 January 2027.