Government set to dilute freedom of information

The government has confirmed it is “minded to” introduce reforms to freedom of information legislation, which campaigners believe would curb the release of politically sensitive and controversial documents.

Under the current rules, a request made under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) can be refused if the cost of retrieving information exceeds £600 for central government departments, and £450 for other public bodies.

It is proposed that the time it takes to read, consider and consult on requests would be added to the cost, so more requests are likely to be refused for exceeding their limit.

The other change would be to treat all requests made by an organisation or individual over a three-month period as one request and count the combined cost against the limits. This would mean that an organisation such as the BBC could make only one request every three months.

The changes were recommended in a report for the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) by Frontier Economics, a consultancy where former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull is a non-executive director.

A DCA spokeswoman said the government was “minded to go with” the recommendations, but said that constitutional affairs secretary Lord Falconer would consider the response to the review before acting. She denied the reforms were an attempt to curb the release of information, saying they would help public authorities deal with requestors who create a “disproportionate burden” with their requests.

But Heather Brooke, author of Your Right to Know, said: “The result of the proposals will be to block all serious investigations, whether by journalists, campaigners or concerned citizens.”

The report found that FoI costs £35m a year, including funding for the office of the information commissioner. Frontier found that including reading time could reduce the cost to central government by 54% and eliminate the most costly 5% of cases.

FoI has been credited with generating savings. Since the amounts claimed in expenses by MPs were made public, claims have gone down by more than half.

Frivolous requests
These requests, made under the FoI Act, sadly give weight to the government’s case:
• Total spend on Ferrero Rocher chocolates by UK embassies
• Details of a sweater given to President Bush by Number 10
• Number of eligible bachelors in the Hampshire Constabulary, received from requestor, who said: “I like men in uniform.”
• Statistics on reported cases of sex with sheep in Wales

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!