On Monday there was a piece in this section by Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers Alliance about all the Freedom of Information requests that Councils have to cope with these days. Conservative controlled Norfolk County Council has complained about the number of them.
A typical council does get hundreds of FIA requests a year and there is a cost involved. But costs could be reduced if there isn't a great effort made to come up for excuses for witholding the information but it is just handed over.
...
On Freedom of Information requests the subject cropped up at last night at the Value for Money Scrutiny Committee in Hammersmith and Fulham, which I chair. We were scrutinising the budget and among the efficiencies was an item proposed to save £42,000 a year. It is: "Cost containment. Freedom of Information improvements achieved by implementing better workflows through using new systems and better information on the website to enable enquiriers to self serve." We also talked about presenting the budget with a more detailed, intelligible breakdown of each section. One of the arguments for transparency, for getting all the information available on the website, is that it would reduce the number of FOI requests and Member Enquries as well as the cost of those that do come in.
News and developments on Freedom of Information in the UK. This blog is run by the Campaign for Freedom of Information. It was established in May 2003 by Steve Wood, who ran it until the end of February 2007 when he took up the post of Assistant Commissioner at the Information Commissioner's Office.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
How should councils cope with Freedom of Information requests
An interesting piece on ConservativeHome's Local Government Blog on 'How should council's cope with Freedom of Information requests?'
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1 comment:
The original piece by Mark Wallace is well worth reading, too. It mentions Norfolk County Council publishing a list of persistent - in its view - requesters.
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