Parliamentary roundup

The following Parliamentary Questions have been asked in the last month:
(Commons unless stated)
One interesting highlight: Alan Milburn is a member of the Cabinet Committee MISC 28 whose terms of reference are to "oversee the Government's strategy of Freedom of Information and the commencement of the Freedom of Information Act 2000". Wonder how this links to his election planning role?

17/03/05
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS personnel have been employed on processing requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 since 1st January

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the impact on (a) costs to the NHS and (b) services to customers of the NHS of the coming into effect of the full provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 since 1st January

No answer yet

15/03/05
Mr. Greenway: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs who is responsible for deciding whether information requested from local government under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 qualifies for an exemption under the Act.

Mr. Leslie: Each individual public authority-and each local authority—is responsible for ensuring that they fulfil their obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. Local councils will make their own arrangements for deciding whether exemptions apply to information requested.

09/03/05
Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the (a) documents and (b) other information released to date by his Department following Freedom of Information Act requests; and what categories of information requested his Department has refused to release. [220639]

Mr. Straw: The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does not hold centrally a list of all information released or categories of information refused. All disclosures of wider public interest are published on the FCO website (www.fco.gov.uk). The FCO's central monitoring system records requests and statistics for disclosures, partial disclosures or refusals. Full details of disclosures and refusals are kept in individual case files opened for each request.

All FCO information is potentially disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be released if it is in the public interest to do so.


Lords 08/03/05
Member Fowler, Rt hon lord
Responding MinisterAshton of Upholland, Baroness

Whether they are satisfied with the operation of the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 relating to the disclosure of documents. 1st supplementary on the disclosure of the views of officials on the decision to invade Iraq and ministerial papers

03/03/05
Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on how many occasions when her officials have been processing requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 it has been necessary to extend the statutory 20 working day limit for response due to the need to assess whether the public interest in disclosing the information requested outweighed the public interest in witholding the information requested.

Alun Michael: It must be remembered that officials are dealing within an entirely new set of requirements and we expect these processes to be much easier to follow once they are bedded in. To date our central tracking system records that there have been a total of 14 requests for information where a reply has had to be extended past the statutory 20 working day limit due to the need to apply the Public Interest Test. Of these requests nine were under the Freedom of Information Act and five were under the new Environmental Information Regulations.

Mr. Clappison: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills pursuant to the answer of 18 January 2005, Official Report, columns 855–56W, on Freedom of Information, what progress has been made by the Office for Fair Access in preparing a publication scheme under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000; and how many requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act have been (a) received and (b) responded to by the Office for Fair Access. [218990]

Dr. Howells: The Office for Fair Access has a draft publication scheme which it expects to submit in March 2005 to the Information Commissioner. OFFA has to date received two requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and has responded to one of them.

02/03/05

Llew Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions when considering requests to his Department for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 it has been necessary to extend the statutory reply period beyond 20 working days because of consideration of whether the request might result in a breach of national security. [214643]

Fiona Mactaggart: For the period from 1 January to 4 February, there has been one case in the Home Office where we have written to the applicant, extending the deadline because we are considering the public interest test in relation to the exemption contained within s.24 (national security).

23/02/05
Dr. Julian Lewis: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what involvement he has had in co-ordinating policy across Departments in respect of the answering of requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Mr. Milburn [holding answer 21 February 2005]: The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor has the policy lead on the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

I am a member of the Cabinet Committee MISC 28 whose terms of reference are to

"oversee the Government's strategy of Freedom of Information and the commencement of the Freedom of Information Act 2000".

21/02/05
Dr. Julian Lewis: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs how many requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 were received by Government departments between 1 and 12 January; and how many (a) had been answered, (b) had been refused and (c) were still outstanding 20 working days from the date of receipt.

Mr. Lammy: The Department for Constitutional Affairs will be publishing full monitoring statistics of central Government's operation of the Freedom of Information Act in spring 2005.

The monitoring regime is published at: http://www.foi.gov.uk/map/gus-v4-appf.pdf. It does not require Government departments to provide statistics broken down into specific time periods. Consequently, the information requested is not immediately available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

However, given the public interest in the volume and handling of Freedom of Information requests, the following figures are available for the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs received 106 requests between 1 January and 12 January. Of these:

(a) 94 have been answered;
(b) 25 were refused either in full or in part;
(c) 12 were still outstanding 20 working days from the date of receipt (including nine cases extended in accordance with section 10(3) of the Act).