Proposed changes to Freedom of information laws

[Roger the Horse]

Information law limits criticised

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6058184.stm

Proposals to change Freedom of Information laws could lead to more requests being rejected because they cost too much, campaigners have warned.
The Campaign for Freedom of Information was responding to plans outlined by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer.

Requests costing more than £600 to process are already rejected - but Lord Falconer has now suggested including the time officials spend in the costs.

The campaign said such a move would hit journalists, lobby groups and MPs.

Benefits

The campaign's director, Maurice Frankel, said: "By doing this, what they are actually going to do is make it much easier for authorities to refuse on costs grounds.

"It would reduce the amount of politically-sensitive and politically-embarrassing information that would be disclosed."

Lord Falconer said: "Freedom of Information has benefited the people - that's what it was intended for and we need to continue to build on its success.

"But Freedom of Information has to be balanced with good government.

"It would be wrong not to make adjustments in light of experience and make sure we get the balance right between the provision of services and the provision of information."

The proposals in the Department for Constitutional Affairs report said including officials' time in calculations of the £600 limit would lead to an 8% fall in requests, and would save £4.7 million a year in officials' time.

In another proposal from Lord Falconer, a series of requests from the same company, organisation, individual or connected individuals - even if the requests are on different topics - could also be considered as one request and refused on cost grounds.

This would lead to a further 11% fall in the number of requests, saving just under £1 million a year, the report said.

However, the government has rejected the idea of a flat-rate fee to submit an FOI request.

Ministerial input

With the most expensive part of dealing with a request being the time spent by ministers, usually five and a half hours, the campaign said cutting out this stage would be a better option for reducing costs.

"There is no legal requirement for ministers to be consulted - FOI staff could make the decisions themselves," Mr Frankel said.

The department's £75,000 independent review of the act's impact, written by economic consultants Frontier Economics, found central government was expected to receive 34,000 requests a year.


Dealing with FOI requests was costing central government £24.4 million a year, it added. Other public authorities covered by the act - such as town halls - faced a total annual bill of £11.1 million.

It added that journalists made 10% of central government FOI requests, which accounted for 20% of officials' time.

Serious concern

"Requests from journalists tend to be more complex and consequently more expensive," said the study.

Shadow constitutional affairs secretary Oliver Heald said: "These plans to allow government officials to 'aggregate' requests are of serious concern and could easily be abused by an administration with something to hide.

"Media organisations, pressure groups and opposition parties face being stonewalled, purely because other colleagues in the same organisation were also making requests.

"It is clear that this is a stealth attempt to curtail the right to know and hinder individuals from asking for information to which they are entitled."


Liberal Democrat legal affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said: "Such changes could greatly undermine the increased openness, accountability and trust in the work of public authorities which the Freedom of Information Act was meant to bring about."

[foliagecop]

Freedom really does cost too much these days.

This is just visible proof that money rules over everything. As if we didn't know that already.

Utterly shameful.