What the experts say

The implications of the act are only starting to dawn on some companies, and that might have a freezing effect on the information they readily disclose. At what point does it become untenable for the world to know how much you are being pinned down by the public sector in terms of contract prices and conditions? If the information system becomes so open and transparent, it may well be that some companies choose to stop working with the public sector altogether.

Andrew Sharpe, associate, Charles Russell

To service freedom of information requests it is as important to have a process in place as the technology. We took the decision early on to set the process in place and then see what we really need to invest in. Workflow has handled the process part, and now we are ready to investigate the benefits of an enterprise electronic document management system.

Simon Haston, planning strategist and relationship manager, City of Edinburgh Council

We have made more progress in the first two years than we expected, and we are very impressed with the effort authorities have made to comply. Central government is providing more information than ever before, although there are requests that they find difficult to comply with in terms of time and willingness to disclose information. The cases referred to us have turned out to be more complex than we anticipated – even those that look straightforward can be difficult both legally and process wise when you unpack them.

Graham Smith Deputy information commissioner,

 A lot of the best examples of use of the act have been by journalists. They are really good at pulling together all the bits of information – for example the way The Guardian pulled together the mortality rate data for cardiac surgeons practicing in the NHS. This is a real example of mosaic information where the sum of the total reveals more than the individual data components, a technique we may be seeing used more frequently.

Steve Wood, senior lecturer in information management, Liverpool John Moores University

For most of the public organisations I have worked with, the impact of the Freedom of Information Act has been low – they were initially concerned about the anticipated volume of requests, but the actual volume and impact on their operations has been pretty manageable. For them, the priority has been to have people in the organisation able to find the information requested, and by having well set-up systems in the first place, then handling requests for information is not too hard.

Graham Oakes, independent consultant