FOIA developments

Some interesting news about possible changes to the FOI regime emerged over the weekend. Lord Facolner outlined that the he would look at the fees regime in terms of allowing for time for officials to "read" documents to be included in the cost calculations. From this I deduce that the fees regulations would be ammended to allow the cost of considering exemptions to be included. This was announced on the today programme on radio 4 on Saturday, the programme also included a debate with the Historian Peter Hennessey about access to information for Historians under the FOIA. (also see report at 24Dash.com)

This was linked to the Conference at the British Academy on "Scholarship and FOI" on Saturday Chaired by Peter Hennessey at which both Lord Falconer and Richard Thomas spoke. Other developments that emerged included Lord Falconer stating that he intends Academy Schools and Private Prisons to be made public authorities under the FOIA. Richard Thomas also gave some information about the 1911 census issue and said that he had written to the Natioanl Archives asking them to clarify a number of issues relating to their non disclosure of the census. I attended the conference and will post a more detailed report later.

Lord Falconer's speech is on the DCA website

Steve