Freedom fighters

Overturning the 30-year rule and challenging the premise that everything is secret, unless otherwise stated, the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act has been with us now for two years.

From 1 January 2005 citizens gained the right to request information from some 100,000 public authorities – central government, local councils, the police, armed forces, NHS bodies, schools and universities, regulators, quangos, advisory bodies, museums, publicly owned companies and even Parliament itself. Only the courts, security services and the royal household were exempt.

After an initial spike in the first six months, the number of requests has settled down. With central government receiving more than 38,000 requests each year, local authorities 70,000 and the police service 21,000, it seems that we do indeed have questions for our public authorities, and are keen for them to be more open and accessible.

According to the deputy information commissioner, Graham Smith, the act is designed to promote access to recorded information. But people seldom ask for recorded information; they ask questions.

‘Therefore there is an issue regarding the extent to which authorities are obliged, or able, to find answers to those questions,’ says Smith.

An inability to respond has resulted in some 220 complaints each month being received by the Information Commissioners Office, although fewer than six per cent of these result in the issue of a formal decision notice.

Nearly a quarter of all complaints are not valid under the act, and according to Smith many of these are the continuation of long-term grievances with the body concerned, held by people who hope the act may give them an additional lever.

Almost half of all complaints are resolved by negotiation or informal decision, although several key decisions have hit the headlines. These include the ruling that Derry City Council must fully disclose its financial dealings with Ryanair, after a request initiated by the Belfast Telegraph. Following a two-year resistance, the council has agreed to disclose what inducements and concessions were given to the airline.

Louise Townsend, a freedom of information law specialist with Pinsent Masons, says that public authorities can no longer hide behind blanket confidentiality obligations in contracts, and contractors should no longer expect them to.

‘Contractors should consider what information they give to the public sector, from tender stage to post completion, and how this information will be protected. Not even financial information will always warrant protection,’ she says.

The most common complaints relate to the general right of access to information held by public authorities, or where the requested information has not been provided in full, or even in part, as well as the length of time a public authority may take to comply with a request.

Independent consultant Graham Oakes says that while the anticipated volume of requests has been manageable for most organisations, finding the information may not be so easy.

‘People need to be able to find information to do their daily jobs, so having a good information management infrastructure – content management systems, archiving policies and classifications schemes – is worthwhile,’ he says.

‘But if you do not have a system set up, trying to handle Freedom of Information requests, without addressing the fundamentals, is next to impossible.’

The type of information requested most frequently includes statistics about the organisations, information about the decisions it made, and spending and contract details. The majority of requests come from members of the public, and not, as predicted, from media and pressure groups.

Steve Wood, senior lecturer in information management at Liverpool John Moores University, runs an active blog on Freedom of Information and Open Government, and is a frequent requester of information.

‘My experience as a requester is that there are a lot of different qualities of response,’ he says. ‘Good compliance with the act does not necessarily mean they have good technology systems.’

Although it is early days for the strategic use of the act for corporate planning, legal expert Andrew Sharpe at city law firm Charles Russell says that in time the regulation will become another process in the marketing department’s activities.

‘Clients in the US are already making extensive use of the Freedom of Information Act to find out the outcomes of tenders – who won, why and how much was bid,’ he says.

It is also being used to find out when contract renewal dates are due, and how well the incumbents are doing in meeting their service level agreements.

‘In the UK it seems that we are a little more reticent in asking these pertinent commercial questions,’ says Sharpe.

‘Interestingly, similar requests regarding library fines and external branding consulting services have been made to many of the UK universities.’

Wood says that some authorities are definitely being targeted by commercial organisations.

‘There is some concern in the university sector about large round robin requests looking for commercial information on tender wins, processes and contract renewal dates,’ he says.

The Freedom of Information Act means that public bodies have to be accountable for the data and information they hold, and it has certainly challenged the way that authorities regard data and record keeping.

Many implemented electronic document management systems to aid storage and retrieval of information requests, but few organisations have yet implemented the systems to support the underlying processes.

Some authorities are, therefore, still not in the best position to log, identify and process information requests, and are unable to easily identify frequent requesters and frivolous requests.

However, Nigel Horncastle, business manager at consultant Morse, says that for many authorities the implementation of technology to help manage the Act has had positive outcomes.

‘There has been a lot of advantages from the introduction of technology to assist with freedom of information,’ he says.

‘In essence, the act is all about good information management practice.’

Freedom of information fees

Case study: The City of Edinburgh Council

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