How the Freedom of Information Act is not working in the UK - the view from Private Eye magazine, issue 1149, January 2006.

"HOW FOI DOESN'T WORK"

"THE culture of secrecy in Whitehall, and beyond, is cracking open," announced Lord Falconer in the Guardian last week, reflecting on the first anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act.

"We have seen real change... We seek to achieve across the whole public sector a new culture of openness, fully embedded in each and every public authority, where information is made available to the widest possible audience at the earliest possible opportunity."

Oh yeah? This has hardly been the experience of Private Eye and its readers over the last 12 months.

The law allows the government 20 working days (about a month) to respond to a request under the act, but it may judge that one of 24 exemptions (including some very broad let-outs such as the potential to harm "policy development" and the country's "economic interests") allows it to withhold the information.

Most exemptions only apply if disclosure would not be in the "public interest", and once a suitable exemption has been found the government has another month to ponder this question. If the request is for something it doesn't want to give up, after a couple of months (or longer: delays are common as there is no penalty for missing the deadlines) it will conclude that the public is better off remaining ignorant.

Anything but the most uncontroversial request can be rejected on these grounds and as a result many Whitehall departments refuse more than half the requests they receive. The Treasury is the most secretive, coughing up what it's asked in just 26 percent of cases.

To challenge a rejection you first have to ask for an "internal review" by the department that has just turned you down, which is when the snail-like pace decelerates. When the Eye recently complained to the Information Commissioner that a review by HM Revenue and Customs had taken almost three months before reaching the predictable conclusion that the reviewer's colleagues had been right to block the request, the commissioner's office replied that "there is no statutory time within which a public authority must complete a review. There is therefore no further action we can take....."

After several months, if you're lucky you'll reach the stage where the commissioner can consider your case. The Eye's latest referral was met with the response that a "case resolution team" will be in touch "to explain how the refusal to disclose information... will be progressed". Action at last? Not quite. "Due to the volume of complaints we are receiving [the backlog is over 1,200] at present it may be up to two months before you hear from us." And that's before the "case resolution team" even starts to think about it.

When the act came into force last year, the Department for Constitutional Affairs set up a "Freedom of Information Users group" for those such as journalists, academics and other researchers to comment on how the government answers requests. But when author and Fol campaigner Heather Brooke - one of the runners-up in last year's inaugural Paul Foot Awards - asked the DCA for a list of members of the group, she was told the list was secret - as are the criteria on which members are selected.

There is no application process, so those picked get on only at the behest of civil servants and special advisers - the very people most opposed to Fol in the first place. "We have identified those contacts we deem most appropriate whom we believe will make a significant contribution," said Rob Murphy of the DCA's Information Rights Division.

So who are these "contacts"? Even the chosen ones cannot be named, says Murphy, because they must first be cleared with ministers. How rigorous such an Fol "users group" can be, when it is micro-managed at every level by civil servants, is unclear. But at least the DCA was able to tell Brooke, who has written a book on Fol and makes frequent requests for information to government departments, one genuine nugget about the list. She isn't on it!

Twelve months ago Lord Falconer wrote of his new act: "The real test is whether there is a change in attitude across the public sector during the next few years, and whether communication between the state and its citizens is strengthened." So far the test has been dismally flunked.


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