Freedom of Information extended to cover more public bodies

Dept of Constitutional Affairs website press release

"A further 22 bodies will be added to the list of public authorities subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, following an Order which was laid in Parliament today."

Advisory Committee on Organic Standards
Advisory Committee on Statute Law
Architects Registration Board
Chemical Weapons Convention National Authority Advisory Committee
Central advisory committees established under paragraph 24 of the
Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
Advisory committees established under paragraph 25 of the Health and
Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972
Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
Distributed Generation Co-Ordinating Group
Fuel Poverty Advisory Group
Her Majesty's Commissioners for Judicial Appointments
Independent Review Panel for Advertising
Independent Review Panel for Borderline Products
Legal Services Complaints Commissioner
Local sea fisheries committees
Pesticides Forum
Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board
Prison Service Pay Review Body
Public Private Partnership Agreement Arbiter
Regional Industrial Development Boards
Royal Hospital at Chelsea
Obstetrics Committee
Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board

FOI causing mass confusion in local councils

There is "mass confusion" among UK councils about how they should change their systems to comply with forthcoming freedom of information legislation, local authority IT user body Socitm has warned

Source: Computer weekly 30th March

Freedom of Information course : Manchester

5th of May at Manchester Business School, further details:

http://www.mbs.ac.uk/corporate/bis/training.htm

Speech by Irish IC

"Freedom of Information Act on Journalism" - Address by the Information Commissioner to Cork Online Law Review 1st March 2004

http://www.irlgov.ie/oic/new.htm

Aberdeen Seminar: Freedom of Information

Grampian Information and CILIPS N E Branch Freedom of Information
Seminar.

This event will be held on Friday 26th March at 2.00 - 4.00 pm at
Conference Room H230, Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Robert
Gordon University, Garthdee, Aberdeen.

"January 2005: What Next for FOI"
Alison Davies, FOI Officer, The Office of the Scottish Information
Commissioner and

"Code of Practice and Model Action Plan for Managing Records Under
Scottish Freedom of Information"
Laura Mitchell, Head of Govt Records Branch, National Archives of
Scotland.

www.grampianinfo.co.uk

HSE uses interactive website to seek views on information

Health and Safety Executive (press release)
"The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has launched a new interactive consultation system on its website. This is being used for the first time to seek views on how restrictions on HSE disclosing information can be brought into line with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the FOI Act)."


http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2004/e04035.htm

SCO takes on US Government supercomputers

ZDNet.co.uk

Use of US FOIA in an intellectual property case over Linux

Scottish Civil servants’ secrets set to be revealed : New freedom of information tsar promises access to ministerial diaries and briefings

Sunday Herald (Scotland)

An interesting contrast with the UK FOI regime may be emerging....

"The new information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, has set up a potential clash with ministers and mandarins at St Andrew’s House, particularly over public access to records of meetings with lobbyists. He also wants interest groups to be able to see what is being said about them in the corridors of power. In an interview, the former environmental campaigner said he planned to take a more liberal view of the freedom of information than that taken by the officials who drew up the legislation. He is preparing to police a new regime of public access to official records which will force disclosure of material whose secrecy has previously been seen as crucial to the smooth running of government"

Guardian: Your right to know

"The Guardian's victory in the high court last week is a vital blow against the culture of secrecy in Whitehall, explains David Leigh....A new set of battles are opening up for the media as the government's Freedom of Information Act moves towards its implementation at the end of the year."

Media Guardian 22nd March (registration required)

Scottish FOI report available

Research report on the preparedness of Scottish public authorities for
the implementation of FOI is published today:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/research.htm
Scottish public authorities are on track to meet their obligations under
Scotland’s new Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, according to
research released today (22 March 2004) by the Scottish Information
Commissioner and TSO (The Stationery Office).

Press will be primed on FOI warns Campaign for FOI

Taken from E-government bulletin:

"The Campaign for Freedom of Information (http://www.cfoi.org.uk) is
to write to every newspaper editor asking them to test out their local
councils, according to the campaign's director Maurice Frankel.

"We are going to write to every newspaper in the country, explaining
the act, offering training on the act and explaining what they can do to
put the act to test," Frankel told an E-Government Bulletin seminar last
month. "You are going to be tested on this legislation the moment it
comes into force by your local newspapers, by national newspapers, by
local groups of various kinds. It's going to be on the front page if you
don't do it properly." He declined to offer precise details of the form
the test for councils would take, to preserve an element of surprise."

Presentations from the seminar 'Freedom of information
compliance - the key to e-government?' are available on the web
(http://www.electronic-government.com/foi.htm)

FOI in the EU

The statewatch website offers a good insight into the area of FOI in the EU. FOI in the EU is governed by Regulation (1049/2001) on access to documents (pdf file)

The European Council (on which sit the heads of government of all member
states) is the only law-making body in any western democracy that enacts
laws in secret. More details: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/european-union/basics/part5.html (Thanks to Heather for this link)

FOI article still available

The blog has gained a lot of new readers since I published an article in the Winter edition (Vol 3 num3/4) in the Journal of Legal Information Management entitled: "From the Hutton Enquiry to driving test routes. The UK Freedom of Information Act (2000): Implications for information provision in the UK." So another quick plug! The article is free for Blog readers at :

http://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/bus/cilm/limwinter03.pdf

You will need Acrobat Reader to view

The blog is going from strength to strength, getting well over a 1000 visitors a month and rapidly rising. Many thanks to everyone for a making it a sucess, the informative and positive emails and comments make it all worthwhile!

Vexatious request debate

An interesting debate has built up on the JISCmail discussion list about whether any email address or name can used by UK FOI requestors (e.g a request from Mickey.Mouse@hotmail.com) and how this may allow repeated or vexatious requests from one individual or group. Advice from the IC would point to public authorities having to take such addresses at face value.

Section 14 of the FOIA relates to vexatious requests.

Does anyone from outside the UK have any perspective on how their laws have operated related to this issue?

Useful Internation FOI site

Freedoinfo.org

Covers FOI around the world, reguslraly updated. Includes a mailing list Based at Washington University

Downing Street to reveal secret meetings

Guardian 16th March

"In a victory for freedom of information, the parliamentary ombudsman has forced Tony Blair to reveal his pattern of meetings with commercial lobbyists. This has been a fiercely preserved Downing Street secret, which critics argue has long tainted democratic government in Britain.
Ann Abraham, the ombudsman, has found No 10 guilty of unjustifiably keeping secret contacts between ministers and commercial companies who are seeking to influence them. Her ruling follows separate complaints from the Guardian and the Liberal Democrats"

Publication schemes -what value? Your views wanted

The comment: "while publication schemes are available on local authority websites some local authorities do not yet have mechanisms in place to evaluate interest in the schemes" in the recent Information Commissioner survey of local government chimes with concerns I have as to the effectiveness and the varying quality and availablity of publication schemes.

Are publication schemes a new proactive way of releasing information or just old wine in new bottles? Send me your views. Have you used publication schemes? are you working in the public sector and measuing their effectiveness. mail: steve_wood62@hotmail.com

Local Government Association: It's time for councils to demonstrate their openess, transparency and accountability

Press release:

“Preparations are taking place across the country in readiness for this new legislation. Local Government is already much more open than many other sectors due to previous information legislation, and we must ensure that we continue to lead the way."

"The LGA has produced a guide – ‘Delivering Freedom of Information: A practical guide to the Freedom of Information Act 2000’ – to help authorities prepare for the training and awareness that is needed to meet the challenges and opportunities of the Act. Copies are priced at £10 for LGA members and £20 for non-members. Further information can be found on the LGA’s website – www.lga.gov.uk/foi.asp "

Freedom of Information in Scotland - The Road to Compliance
A briefing day for Further and Higher Education in Scotland

MacRobert Arts Centre, University of Stirling
Thursday 22 April 2004

Website for information:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/legal/index.cfm?name=lis_foi_scot_event_2004

Booking form at: http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/events/jlis2.html
Cost: £50 includes lunch and refreshments

New German FOI Blog

A new blog has been set up to cover FOI in Germany and Internationally, many of the postings are in English: http://freedom-info.blogspot.com

The blog is linked to the Bertelsmann Foundation's project on FOI. There is a useful report available for download on FOI and transparency. There are also proceedings from the International Conference "Freedom of Information and the transparent state" available (contains some valuable discussion and comparison of overseas legislation).

Speech by Lord Falconer

Speech to the Campaign for Freedom of Information by the Rt. Hon. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, at the St Bride Institute, London, 1 March 2004. Available on the Campaign for Freedom of Information Website. States that no changes to the legislation are likely on the short term: " So let us get this legislation into force first; let us make a success of the job we began in 1997. And then we can have a debate about improvements"

FOI e-learning site

A company called Hotlearning is offering an FOI e-learning package, it is available for evaluation at http://www.hotlearning.com/foi/ for a few days before being made available for a fee.

(This is not an endorsement of this service, which I have not fully evaluated)

FREEDOM of Information Act : lack of preparation


Out-Law.com

"With major provisions of the Freedom of Information Act due to come into
force on 1st January 2005, local authorities still have a lot to do"

Financial Services Authority FOI news

"The Financial Services Authority has issued its publication scheme under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

It is also releasing a Policy Statement (numbered 04/4) on its approach to implementing the Freedom of Information Act, which sets out the FSA's final policy on operating a publication scheme following the publication of a draft scheme in October 2003 (Discussion Paper 23: The FSA's approach to implementing the Freedom of Information Act 2000). "

Taken from Public Technology. Net(thanks to Heather for this)

Full FSA press release: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/press/2004/019.html

The FSA will be an important test for FOI in light of financial scandals (Enron, World Com etc) and in light of the forthcoming Sarbanes Oxley Act in the US

New report on the Information Commissioner's site:

A survey of preparations of Local Authorities for FOI has been published, this complements the Central Governement survey published a few months ago

'No' to more liberal information regime

Financial Times; Mar 02, 2004

"The government has rejected any liberalisation of its freedom of information regime for the foreseeable future......Lord Falconer, secretary of state for constitutional affairs, yesterday turned down proposals that ministers should forego the right to veto the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act, which takes effect in January next year. He also rejected the idea that officials should use a higher test of harm before the release of information could be refused."

Social Network Anaysis of the Hutton Enquiry

Not exactly FOI, but thought this was interesting.....

A student at Syracuse University called Seth Richards has done a brief social network analysis of internal government documents released as a result of the UK Hutton Inquiry. He also does some assessments of the centrality of various players, including Alastair Campbell, who tops the list.

The paper is located at:

http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/asroberts/documents/richards

Financial Times: Unglued secrecy

"British culture of official secrecy and over-classification is no longer sustainable. On the one hand, Tony Blair's government has welched on its commitment to an effective Freedom of Information Act, and indeed to open government. On the other, top officials and spies commit sensitive information to e-mail with a confidence that is almost touching"

Financial Times 27th February