You should be careful to word your question in a fairly precise manner because if it is to open and requires too much work to comply with the request then the organisation may have grounds to refuse you.
FOI requests must generally be satisfied within 20 days. There is no fee. They can sometimes be preferable to Data Protection Act disclosure requests because there is no associated fee and also a DPA request must only be satisfied within 40 days – far too long, in my view.
FOI requests are far wider than DPA requests. Of course they are limited to public sector organisations, but they can be on pretty well any matter – not only your own personal data.
There is no particular format. The request can be made by email. And in fact any public sector organisation is bound to consider any request for any information, automatically as an FOI request.
