The Government has backed the controversial suggestions
contained in an independent review of FOI practice produced by
consultancy Frontier Economics. The effect will be to drastically
reduce the numbers of requests allowable by groups, and could
increase the number of requests that are refused, campaigners have
warned.
The Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has published a
draft of revised regulations covering FOI requests and will consult
on that draft until March. The draft follows closely the
recommendations of the Frontier Economics report.
At the moment any request which costs less than a fixed amount
to process must be fulfilled. That amount is £600 for central
government and £450 for local authorities, calculated at a rate of
£25 an hour for finding and extracting the information.
The new proposal, though, is to charge for other time consuming
activity such as reading of documents and staff consultation. This
will send many more requests above the £600 barrier, at which point
they can be refused.
While Government can choose to process requests that will cost
over £600 and charge the requester any additional costs it is under
no obligation to do so and can simply refuse the request
altogether.
Critics of the revisions claim that the changes are designed to
prevent the release of vital and complex information, which by
definition is more likely to break the £600 barrier because it
needs more consultation.
"I'm particularly concerned that responsible media use of the
FOI Act is the target for this," Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith
told OUT-LAW when the proposals were first published. Beith chaired
a Commons Committee which reported on the progress of the FOI Act's
use.
"They occasionally cite abuses of this, some of which are by
individuals rather than media organisations, some of which can be
dealt with by existing powers and none of which require this sort
of draconian measure," said Beith.
A second major change in the DCA's proposals is that each
organisation would be limited to a certain number of requests in
any three month period. The result could be that organisations such
as major newspapers or even the BBC would be rationed to as little
as one request every three months to each public body.
"These changes strike right at the heart of the Act, which is
that the basis for decisions should be the public interest, not
authorities’ interests," said Maurice Frankel of the Campaign for
Freedom of Information. "Under the proposals, the more substantial
the public interest issue raised by someone’s request, the more
likely it will be to be refused. The government is taking a scythe
to its own Act.”
The Government is keen to cut the cost of keeping in line with
the Act, which it puts at £35.5 million. Frankel, though, says that
the amount to be saved is not reason enough to change the
regulations so drastically. " The supposed savings from these
changes, of £11.8 million, is out of all proportion to the damage
that would be done to the legislation," he said.
"We feel that the existing provisions need to be extended to
make sure public authorities can strike the right balance between
access to information for all and the delivery of other public
services," said Information Rights minister Baroness Catherine
Ashton.
"I believe that the changes reflected in these draft regulations
will allow public authorities to take into account more accurately
the work involved in dealing with an FOI request in a way that is
reasonable and sensible," she said.
