Metropolitan Police Public Access Office

On Wednesday night I attended the opening of the Metropolitan Police Public Access Office at New Scotland Yard, the office will form a key part of their strategy towards complying with the FOI Act. The Met has made extensive preparations for FOI and already manages approx 84,000 Data Protection requests a year. Their publication scheme is growing at an average rate of 102 documents submitted for publication per month, with an average 8,000 hits and 5,500 documents downloaded per week. At the reception I also saw a demo of the Met's MetRIC system for handling DPA, FOI and EIR requests. The MPS publication is available at http://www.met.police.uk/foi/