Slow progress on coalition's commitment to extend FOI

Although the coalition government is committed to extending the scope of the Freedom of Information Act, the process is turning out to be excruciatingly slow.

Before the 2010 election the Conservatives promised to extend the FOI Act to additional bodies "within weeks of the General Election". A consultation was announced by the Ministry of Justice on 7 January 2011, but two and a half years after the election, a decision on the outcome is still not close.

A recent parliamentary question by Stewart Jackson MP asked what progress had been made extending the Act to registered providers of social housing. The minister's answer revealed that consultation with these bodies is yet to even begin, despite Grant Shapps, the former housing minister, promising back in June 2011 they would be consulted later that year. It also confirmed that it could be spring 2015 before the extension of FOI to bodies with public functions is complete.

Last year, the MoJ disclosed further details about which bodies it is consulting about coverage following a FOI request by the Campaign. Someone else asked for the responses received by the MoJ from those bodies, but the MoJ refused that citing the exemption for information relating to the formulation or development of government policy. The Information Commissioner recently upheld the department's refusal to disclose the responses on the grounds that the policy process was still live at the time of the request. The Commissioner's decision cites the strong weight that should be attached to 'safe space' arguments and, to a lesser extent, the 'chilling effect', as the two reasons for his finding that the public interest favoured withholding the information, despite the fact that the disputed information involved third party information and not the advice of officials.

In contrast, the Ombudsman in New Zealand has just published a case note on a complaint where she found there was no good reason to withhold responses to a government consultation exercise which were still under active consideration under the Official Information Act (h/t Andrew Ecclestone):

Ombudsmen have rejected the argument that premature release of public submissions would impede the subsequent development and consideration of policy advice by officials and Ministers. Disclosure of submissions cannot pre-empt or prejudice the ability to consider later advice that may in part be based on the submissions. Officials remain free to advise Ministers (and Ministers to advise Cabinet) about the merit or lack of merit in particular submissions as they see fit, and to offer such additional advice as they deem appropriate. 

It's clear that section 5 is not the appropriate mechanism for resolving anomalies in the legislation's coverage, given the time it takes. Last year the Campaign worked with Lord Wills on an amendment to the Localism Act which would have brought the Housing Ombudsman under FOI, though the amendment was not accepted. From 1 April 2013, the Housing Ombudsman's jurisdiction will be extended to all social housing in England. The government is consulting the Ombudsman on FOI coverage and the Service's website says it "will follow the terms of the Act voluntarily whenever possible". But judging by the minister's answer it will be several years yet before requesters have a legally enforceable right to obtain information from it.

Parliamentary debates on extension of the FOI Act

The Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011 was debated and approved by both Houses of Parliament this week. The Order was made under section 5 of the FOI Act, which provides for the Secretary of State to extend the Act to bodies with public functions or to contractors providing public services on behalf of authorities (where the provision of the service is a function of the authority). The Order designated three additional bodies - the Association of Chief Police Officers, Financial Ombudsman Service and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service - as public authorities for the purposes of the Act.

The Order was debated by a Delegated Legislation Committee in the House of Commons. During the debate a number of points were made about the scope of the Order and the government's commitment to extend the Act:

Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab): We welcome this extension to the number of pubic bodies covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2005 from—to use the Minister’s figures—100,000 to 100,003. We do so because the previous Labour Government were proud of the legislation, and the Opposition remain proud of having introduced it. In fact, the bodies were told that they were likely to become subject to the legislation in March 2010, under the previous Government, as the explanatory notes make clear. The order is clearly a de minimis extension to the number of bodies covered, although the individual bodies are important. Looking at them singly, it seems a logical extension to include each of them...

Secondly, I want to put on record that the substantial problem that I suspect that many colleagues have with the Freedom of Information Act is not the legislation itself, but its selective operation by public bodies, and the variation in responses, which range from helpful and speedy to deliberately obfuscatory and obstructive. That is something that the Government need to look at, because some public bodies—irrespective of party, type of organisation, and whether they are national or local—put more effort into avoiding the provisions of the Act than fulfilling their statutory duties. That is simply wrong. It is an abuse of legislation that this House has passed, and that needs the Government’s urgent attention...

Tom Brake: I will be brief. I welcome the fact that ACPO will be covered by FOI. I always thought that its exclusion was an anomaly, given the role that it plays. At the risk of sounding like a broken record—Members will hear that it is a 78—I hope that Network Rail will feature in the list of 200 bodies that are being considered for possible inclusion under FOI, because many of the issues that surround ACPO also surround Network Rail. The organisation is a recipient and a spender of large amounts of public money. To all intents and purposes, all its activities are in the public domain and should be covered by FOI; so, too, should the increasing number of private contractors doing public works. I wonder whether they will be included in the 200 bodies to which the Minister has referred. We as a Government are spending huge sums of public money on contracts that are delivered by such private companies. They are delivering, in effect, public services, and it would be entirely appropriate for them to be subject to FOI as well...

Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con): The measures announced by the present Government are a welcome improvement to the Act. However, before the election, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promised that Network Rail would also be covered by the Act, and the Conservatives additionally promised to cover Northern Rock, but neither body has been covered. A report by the Public Accounts Committee published in July 2011 concluded that Network Rail, which received £3.7 billion of direct taxpayer support in 2009-10, was “not transparent”...

There are many other candidates for designation, including electoral registration officers and returning officers, whose decisions about voting facilities prevented some from voting at the previous election. They are appointed by local authorities, but have their own legal existence and are not currently subject to the Act. District auditors are another significant omission. The Information Commissioner’s line-to-take document dated 29 August 2006 states:

“Appointed auditors clearly have many of the characteristics of public authorities and it is notable that information relating to audits of central government bodies, which are carried out by the National Audit Office, are accessible under the Act since the NAO is a public authority. The DCA is aware of the apparent anomaly and have told us, on a confidential basis, that consideration is being given to an Order.”

What happened to that consideration?

The responsibilities and powers of the housing ombudsman are to be expanded under the Localism Bill. At present, complaints about social housing matters are dealt with by two different ombudsmen. Complaints about housing associations go to the housing ombudsman; complaints about local authority housing go the local government ombudsman. The Localism Bill proposes that, in future, a unified complaints system should apply, with both types of complaint going to the housing ombudsman. Surprisingly, the housing ombudsman is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Localism Bill contains no provision to bring the ombudsman under the Act, despite the fact that the housing ombudsman is to take over important responsibilities from the local government ombudsman, who is subject to the FOI Act.

Finally, the public’s right to information is likely to be undermined by some Government policies. Under the NHS reforms, NHS services will be provided either by NHS bodies or by independent providers under contract. The NHS bodies that commission services will be subject to the FOI Act, but independent providers will not. The standard NHS commissioning contract contains a clause requiring providers to provide the commissioning bodies with information to help them answer FOI requests, but the clause appears to apply only to the specific information that the contract requires a provider to hold or report. The contract does not cover the full range of information that would be available from an NHS body under FOI.

As functions are transferred from NHS bodies to independent providers, the existing broad FOI right of access is likely to be increasingly constricted. To prevent that, any contractual disclosure provision must reflect the full breadth of the existing access right and not be limited to specified databases, statistics or reports, however numerous they may be. The disclosure provision should extend to any information that would assist in assessing the adequacy of a provider’s services. Furthermore, where a provider’s work consists primarily of treating NHS patients, the provider should be made subject to the FOI Act under section 5 of that Act.

There are similar concerns about the contracting out of local authority functions proposed by the Localism Bill. The more council functions that are carried out by contractors, the harder it will be to rely on the Freedom of Information Act to scrutinise what is being achieved. The Government have so far refused to support potential solutions to that; they prefer to defer consideration of the issue until post-legislative scrutiny of the FOI Act next year, which risks the emergence of serious gaps in FOI coverage in the meantime.

The Order was also considered by Grand Committee in the Lords, during which a number of points about the Act's operation were made, including by the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Martin of Springburn, who raised concerns about journalists' use of the Act:

Lord Martin of Springburn: Many journalists use freedom of information so that they can get what is best described as an angle for their particular story. When they ask the question and there follows a period of, let us say, 27 days-although I may be contradicted on that-I have known it to be the case with matters of the House that they have complained bitterly that the freedom of information was given to them and to the general public. They have complained bitterly that it spoiled their story that everybody else should get the information. Freedom of information is about everybody getting that information. They are on record as complaining; they are using it as a device to get a scoop, or whatever they call it.

I feel strongly that once the information is issued to the applicant for that freedom of information, it should be put in the public domain immediately afterwards. In other words, if the information is given to the applicant at 2 o'clock on a given day, by one minute past two everyone should be able to get that information. I know that some people say that the identity of an applicant should not matter and that you should not know who they are. However, it is a bit rich if an application is made by someone sitting in garret in Toronto, asking for information, which takes a considerable amount of public funding. We should at least know whether a taxpayer of this country is making that application. Can the Minister mention that? It is not fair that someone who has nothing else to do with their time in another country can make an application and no one has to say where they come from. That is very important...

The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally): I turn to points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Martin, a number of which I thoroughly agree with. There have been journalists who have turned freedom of information into a kind of cottage industry. I again hope that the transparency agenda will make this less necessary, and that people will get the information that they want. I take his point about immediate publication. In pushing forward the agenda we press organisations to publish immediately or as soon as possible. In certain circumstances there may be a reason to consult and delay, but in the main I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Martin, said. This is not information for an individual journalist; this is public information, and should be made public as quickly as possible.

I was interested in his points about the Republic of Ireland. I was on the pre-legislative committee that looked at freedom of information. The noble Lord, Lord Bach, is nodding; he will recall that one of the most enthusiastic pieces of evidence we received about freedom of information was from the Irish freedom of information director...The interesting thing about that was that the Irish have had post-legislative scrutiny of their own legislation and have brought in a number of restrictions, such as the one that the noble Lord, Lord Martin, referred to. They have brought in charges for some aspects of freedom of information.

The critics of freedom of information say that it puts unfair burdens and great costs on departments, as referred to before by the noble Lord, Lord Martin. I hope that the Justice Committee will take a good look at how the Act is working, take evidence from its critics and supporters, and then take us forward as we have indicated.

It's interesting that Lord McNally refers to "post legislative scrutiny" of the Irish Freedom of Information Act having led to restrictions being introduced to the Irish legislation. In fact, the process of review of the Irish FOI Act was far from open, as the Irish Information Commissioner described in a report to mark the first decade of the Irish Act:

The Review Group consisted of four Secretaries General under the chairmanship of the Secretary General to the Government and, remarkably, conducted its review in secret; it did not seek the views of the public, of any of the parties with a particular interest (such as the media) nor of the Information Commissioner. The review process was the very antithesis of the process which preceded the drafting of the original legislation...The primary urge to amend arose from the fact that, with effect from 21 April 2003, some Cabinet records would have become potentially available under the FOI Act.

A copy of the draft Order, Explanatory Memorandum and Impact Assessment are available here.

Effect of NHS reforms on FOI rights

The Campaign for Freedom of Information has written to the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, expressing concern that the public's rights to information about the NHS are likely to be "increasingly constricted" by the reforms in the Health and Social Care Bill.

Under the reforms, NHS services will be provided either by NHS bodies or by independent providers under contract. The NHS bodies which commission services will themselves be subject to the FOI Act though the independent providers will not. However, the providers will be contractually required to provide information to the commissioning bodies to help them answer FOI requests.

The standard NHS contract already contains a clause requiring providers to do this. But according to the Campaign, the clause appears to apply only to the specific information which the contract itself requires a provider to hold or report on. While numerous items of information are specified – for example, about the quality of the service, treatment times, complaints, MRSA infections and other matters - it does not cover the full range of information that would be available under FOI from an NHS body itself.

In the letter, the Campaign calls on the government to extend the disclosure provision so that FOI rights in relation to independent providers’ NHS work is as wide as that of NHS bodies themselves. The Campaign director Maurice Frankel says:

“Suppose there is concern about the use of potentially contaminated medical supplies by hospitals. For an NHS hospital, the FOI Act could be used to obtain details of stocks of the product, the number of doses administered, the numbers of affected patients, the quality control measures in place, correspondence with suppliers, minutes of meetings at which the problem was discussed and information showing what measures were considered, what action was taken, how promptly and with what results.

This level of information would clearly not be available in relation to independent providers treating NHS patients. This would represent a major loss of existing information rights."

Read the letter here.

FOI amendments pressed during Localism Bill

The Campaign for Freedom of Information has been working on amendments to the Localism Bill tabled by Lord Wills, the former Labour FOI minister. The amendments sought to:

1) Require local authority executives and their committees to meet in public, unless regulations specify otherwise. The Localism Bill amends the arrangements for local authority governance, allowing councils to return to the committee system should they choose to do so. For authorities which operate executive arrangements, the Bill allows for new regulations to be made governing the circumstances in which meetings and documents must be open to the public (Clause 11 of the Localism Bill gives effect to Schedule 2 which inserts a new Part 1A into the Local Government Act 2000, and the proposed section 9GA(4) of that new part provides for these regulations to be made). But if the regulations are not made before the new arrangements come into force, the Bill would leave it to executives themselves to decide which of their meetings will be open to the public and which will be held in private (Sections 9G(1) and (2) of the new part 1A). They would be free to hold all their meetings in private, should they choose to do so. The amendment sought to reverse this position, so that in the absence of regulations, all meetings of the executive or its committees would have to be in public.

2) Ensure that future contracts entered into by local authorities would include a ‘freedom of information’ provision. This would stipulate that all information about the performance of the contract which is held by the contractor would be deemed to be held 'on behalf of' the authority for the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations. The ‘Community Right to Challenge’ in Chapter 3 of the Localism Bill envisages that a growing proportion of local authorities’ functions will be carried out for it by other bodies. The intention of the amendment is that the public’s rights to information should be the same, whether a particular task is carried out in-house or contracted out.

3) Bring companies that are 50% or more owned by local authorities within the scope of the FOI Act. At present the FOI Act applies to companies that are wholly owned by a single public authority. The Protection of Freedoms Bill would extend that definition to cover a company which is wholly owned by more than one public authority. However, a company which jointly owned by a public authority and some other body, perhaps a private company, is not subject to the FOI Act at all, even where the public authority is the dominant shareholder. The amendment would bring such companies within the Act’s scope.

4) Require local authorities to publish annual statistics on their compliance with the FOI Act.

5) Bring the Housing Ombudsman within the scope of the FOI Act. At present, complaints about social housing matters are dealt with by two different ombudsmen. Complaints about housing associations go to the Housing Ombudsman; complaints about local authority housing go to the Local Government Ombudsman. The Localism Bill proposes that in future a unified complaints system should apply, with both types of complaint going to the Housing Ombudsman.

This transfer of functions, may be accompanied by a strengthening of the Housing Ombudsman’s enforcement powers. The Bill allows the Secretary of State by Order to give the Housing Ombudsman the power to make determinations which have the force of a court order (New paragraph 7C, which would be added to Schedule 2 of the Housing Act 1996 by clause 158 of the Localism Bill). Surprisingly, the Housing Ombudsman is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Localism Bill contains no provision to bring the Ombudsman under the Act, despite the fact that the Housing Ombudsman is to take over important responsibilities from the Local Government Ombudsman, who is subject to the FOI Act. The amendment would redress this anomaly.

The amendments were debated during the second day of the Bill’s committee stage on Thursday 23 June 2011. Responding to the debate, the minister Baroness Hanham gave a reassurance that the Government would make it clear there is a presumption of openess regarding meetings of local authority executives. But she did not support any of the other amendments.

I cannot say anything more than that we are very much in favour of open access to meetings of local authorities, but we recognise that there are occasions when confidential information has to be discussed – for example, information on contracts and members of staff. Meetings have to be closed sometimes, but we will make it clear that there has to be a presumption in favour of openness… 

We do not believe that it is necessary to extend the Freedom of Information Act to those bodies at present with information about contracts with public authorities, which can be requested from them. A local authority can be quizzed about any contract that it has and we are proactively publishing contractual information online.

Amendment 133C would introduce a statutory requirement for the publication of an annual report by every local authority, including the smallest parish councils receiving very low volumes of freedom of information requests. We do not think that this is a burden that should be borne...

Finally, on extending the Freedom of Information Act to cover the Housing Ombudsman, it is worth noting that we are planning to extend the Act to a considerable number of new bodies through legislation and we intend to keep those under review. While I do not say “in”, I do not say “out” at the present time.

In reply, Lord Wills pressed the minister to consider the amendments again in more detail.

I am grateful to the Minister for the spirit in which she engaged with these amendments. However, her response was not quite as welcoming instinctively as I would have hoped, so I ask her to scrutinise the amendments in more detail and perhaps to consult the noble Lord, Lord McNally. I do not say that because I discount any possible burdens put on local authorities or contractors or businesses. As someone who ran a small business in the past, I am deeply conscious of the need to avoid putting burdens on small businesses. These amendments were framed not to place a disproportionate burden on anyone. Perhaps on closer scrutiny that will become apparent.

I am willing to accept any suggestions for amendments and I am sure that the Government would be able to improve the drafting. The key point that I ask the Minister to take away is that, if the Government do not engage with the issues behind these amendments…that will mean, potentially, over time, a significant diminution of transparency in the operation of local authorities and those whom they contract to provide services for them. That is very serious for those who believe in freedom of information. It is in breach of a fundamental tenet of the coalition agreement, which is why I hope that this Government will take it seriously.

Read the full debate on the amendments here (begins Col 1433).

See also:
Localism Bill Explanatory Notes [HL Bill 71] ) (pdf)
Second Marshalled List of Amendments as at 21 June. Lord Wills' amendments were 52A, 133A, 133B, 133C and 181A.

Public Accounts Committee says Network Rail should be subject to FOI Act

A report by the Public Accounts Committee 'Office of Rail Regulation: Regulationg Network Rail's efficiency' published today, calls for the Department for Transport and Office of Rail Regulation to ensure that Network Rail is made subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The report states:

The internal operations of Network Rail are not transparent. We are concerned about Network Rail’s use of ‘compromise agreements’ with departing employees, and that a review by the Regulator has been required to investigate the delayed disclosure by Network Rail of an issue regarding level crossing safety. We are concerned that Network Rail was not able to tell us the total value of compromise agreements it had entered into. The Department and the Regulator should ensure that Network Rail is subject to the same transparency requirements as public bodies, with full application of the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

It also says:

Pursuing the issue of transparency, we noted press reports of an internal Railtrack memorandum from 2001 regarding safety at the Elsenham level crossing, an issue which had not been made public until 2006. The matter is currently the subject of review by the Regulator, who will judge whether it was material to the public interest and was withheld deliberately. Network Rail is not currently subject to Freedom of Information legislation, but told us that it would not object to being included within the scope of the Act in future.

Does this mean Network Rail has had a change of heart? David Higgins, who took over as Chief Executive of Network Rail in February 2010, told the Committee he would have no objection to members of the public being able to make FOI requests adding that he had "been used to FOI in the last two jobs I have had".

Before the election both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promised Network Rail would be covered by FOI.  In April 2010, the Conservatives published 'Big ideas to give Britain real change in politics', which stated:

A Conservative government will increase the range of publically funded bodies that are subject to scrutiny using Section 5 orders under the Freedom of Information Act. These bodies will include:

• Network Rail

• Northern Rock;

• The Carbon Trust;

• The Energy Saving Trust;

• NHS Confederation (in relation to activities in receipt of public funds);

• Local Government Association; and

• Traffic Penalty Tribunals

Section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act enables Secretaries of State to designate organisations that appear to exercise functions of a public nature to scrutiny under the legislation. We will extend the Freedom of Information Act to these organisations within weeks of the General Election.

But an announcement in January 2011 that the Government would extend the FOI Act to additional bodies did not include Network Rail, a decision which the Campaign for Freedom of Information expressed disappointment about.

See also:
We need a regulator with teeth to force efficiencies at Network Rail, says MPs - The Times, 12 July 2011 (subscription)
Network Rail chief in push for openness - FT, 27 Feb 2011

Campaign's response to Government's plans to extend the FOI Act

The Campaign for Freedom of Information has welcomed the coalition government’s announcement (see earlier post here) that it proposed:

• to extend the FOI Act to a range of regulatory, representative and other bodies 
• to implement the last government’s measures to release old government records after 20 years instead of 30 years
• apply the Act to companies that are jointly owned by more than one public authority.

The Campaign said these were valuable improvements to the FOI regime.

However it pointed out that before the election both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised that Network Rail would be covered and that the Conservatives’ had also promised to cover Northern Rock. Neither body is being covered. Many other individual bodies, including electoral registration officers and returning officers should also be added, the Campaign said.

It also called for companies providing contracted out functions to be brought under the Act, particularly those relating to health, social services, education and criminal justice and for the Act to be extended to housing associations. The Campaign pointed out that the Scottish Government was proposing to extend the Scottish FOI Act to contractors who build or maintain schools, hospitals and roads (where the contract value is above certain thresholds), to private bodies running prisons or providing prison escort services to contractors running local authority sports or leisure centres and to the Glasgow Housing Association.

The Campaign said it was also unhappy at the decision to implement a more restrictive exemption for senior members of the Royal Family. At present, communications with the Royal Family are exempt, but potentially disclosable on public interest grounds. In future the public interest test will be removed for communications with the monarch and the next two in line to the throne. The Campaign said that where Prince Charles was seeking to actively intervene in policy decisions, his input would be withheld in all circumstances, even if it had played the decisive role.

Finally, the Campaign suggested the proposal to allow the Information Commissioner to serve for only a single 5 year term was a potentially double-edged sword. Limiting appointment to a single term only meant that the Commissioner could not be tempted to comply with the government’s wishes in order to be reappointed. But appointing a new Commissioner every 5 years could be potentially disruptive, as a new Commissioner needed at least a year to master the brief, and the Campaign suggested the Commissioner’s term of appointment should be extended to 6 or 7 years.

Full press release here.

Government plans to extend the FOI Act

The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to extend the scope of the FOI Act. The plans include:

increasing the number of organisations to which FOI requests can be made, bringing in bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Financial Services Ombudsman, and higher education admissions body UCAS; and also all companies wholly owned by any number of public authorities

consulting on bringing a range of further bodies which are believed to perform functions of a public nature under the FOI umbrella, including Examination Boards, Harbour Authorities, the Local Government Association and the NHS Confederation

making most public records available at The National Archives and other places of deposit ten years sooner, when they are 20 years old; the package will also reduce the time some types of information - including court records, ministerial correspondence and policy formulation - can be withheld, to 20 years instead of 30

undertaking post legislative scrutiny, to see how well the Act is working in practice and whether there are further changes to be made.

The full press release is here and response issued by the Information Commissioner's Office here. Further comment to follow later today.

Coalition programme for government on FOI and government transparency

'The Coalition: our programme for government' document published this morning (20 May 2010) promises to introduce a Freedom Bill and repeats the commitment to extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act made in the earlier Coalition Agreement and by the both parties.

A Freedom Bill was promised in the Lib Dem manifesto. A draft Freedom Bill published by the Lib Dems last year contained a number of proposals to strengthen the FOI Act such as removing the ministerial veto. See http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/the-freedom-bill/17-strengthening-freedom-of-information/

The Coalition document also contains the 'right to data' and the proactive publication proposals from the Conservative manifesto. The relevant extracts of the document are:

3. CIVIL LIBERTIES
We will be strong in defence of freedom. The Government believes that the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused and eroded fundamental human freedoms and historic civil liberties. We need to restore the rights of individuals in the face of encroaching state power, in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness.

• We will implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion.
• We will introduce a Freedom Bill.
• We will scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register and the ContactPoint database, and halt the next generation of biometric passports.
• We will outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
• We will extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
• We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
• We will protect historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
• We will restore rights to non-violent protest.
• We will review libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
• We will introduce safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
• We will further regulate CCTV.
• We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason.
• We will introduce a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
• We will establish a Commission to investigate the creation of a British Bill of Rights that incorporates and builds on all our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, ensures that these rights continue to be enshrined in British law, and protects and extends British liberties. We will seek to promote a better understanding of the true scope of these obligations and liberties.

...

16. GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY
The Government believes that we need to throw open the doors of public bodies, to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account. We also recognise that this will help to deliver better value for money in public spending, and help us achieve our aim of cutting the record deficit. Setting government data free will bring significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites.

• We will require public bodies to publish online the job titles of every member of staff and the salaries and expenses of senior officials paid more than the lowest salary permissible in Pay Band 1 of the Senior Civil Service pay scale, and organograms that include all positions in those bodies.
• We will require anyone paid more than the Prime Minister in the centrally funded public sector to have their salary signed off by the Treasury.
• We will regulate lobbying through introducing a statutory register of lobbyists and ensuring greater transparency.
• We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics.
• We will strengthen the powers of Select Committees to scrutinise major public appointments.
• We will introduce new protections for whistleblowers in the public sector.
• We will take steps to open up government procurement and reduce costs; and we will publish government ICT contracts online.
• We will create a level playing field for opensource software and will enable large ICT projects to be split into smaller components.
• We will require full, online disclosure of all central government spending and contracts over £25,000.
• We will create a new ‘right to data’ so that government-held datasets can be requested and used by the public, and then published on a regular basis.
• We will require all councils to publish meeting minutes and local service and performance data.
• We will require all councils to publish items of spending above £500, and to publish contracts and tender documents in full.
• We will ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties.

Conservatives promise to extend FOI Act

The Conservatives have promised to extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act within weeks of the general election.

Expanding the Freedom of Information Act
We will expand the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to include taxpayer-funded bodies such as Northern Rock and Network Rail, together with bodies such as the Local Government Association. This will give the public access to a huge amount of government information currently available only to Ministers.

Background
Under Labour, the Freedom of Information Act excludes a wide range of taxpayer funded bodies which exercise power over areas ranging from railways to the Olympics budget to energy efficiency projects and road traffic penalties.

Conservative policy
A Conservative government will increase the range of publically funded bodies that are subject to scrutiny using Section 5 orders under the Freedom of Information Act. These bodies will include:

• Network Rail
• Northern Rock; 
• The Carbon Trust; 
• The Energy Saving Trust; 
• NHS Confederation (in relation to activities in receipt of public funds); 
• Local Government Association; and 
• Traffic Penalty Tribunals

Section 5 of the Freedom of Information Act enables Secretaries of State to designate organisations that appear to exercise functions of a public nature to scrutiny under the legislation. We will extend the Freedom of Information Act to these organisations within weeks of the General Election.   

The plans were published in a document detailing nine Big ideas to give Britain real change in politics, which also included further details about the right to government data included in the Conservative manifesto (see earlier post here)

The Right to Data Act will give members of the public a legally enforceable 'Right to Data',  so that the public has the right to appeal if public bodies refuse requests for data collected by government.

This radical policy will put the public in the driving seat when it comes to requesting and receiving government datasets containing anonymised but socially or commercially useful information. Once published, there will be a continuing obligation to publish that data on a regular basis for as long as it is collected.

This legislation will be introduced as soon as possible, but even before the draft bill has  become law, a Conservative government will improve transparency by launching spending transparency and making a wide range of government datasets available to the public. 

Cameron plans to open up information and set public data free

Conservative leader David Cameron announced the following plans to open up information in a speech at Imperial College on 25 June 2009:

INFORMATION FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

We have already announced some of the ways in which we will put information - and thereby power - in people's hands.

We will publish every item of government spending over £25,000.

It will all be there for an army of armchair auditors to go through, line by line, pound by pound, to hold wasteful government to account.

We will require the publication of crime data online in an open way so that communities can build their own crime maps, see what crimes are being committed, where and at what time and hold their local police to account if they're not doing something about it. And we will require all local councils to publish information like meeting minutes and local service data in a standardised format.

This will give people the power to hold local government to account, and to develop new public services like a local version of TheyWorkForYou, or Bebo applications that tell teenagers when the local sports centre is open as well as the power to see which councils are providing the best value for money, so residents can demand the same from their own. But today we're announcing further steps towards true freedom of information.

SETTING DATA FREE

In Britain today, there are over 100,000 public bodies producing a huge amount of information.

This ranges from school league tables to train timetables; from health outcomes to public sector job vacancies. Most of this information is kept locked up by the state. And what is published is mostly released in formats that mean the information can't be searched or used with other applications, like online maps. his stands in the way of accountability.

Let me give you just two examples.

Today, many central government and quango job adverts are placed in a select few newspapers.

Some national, some regional. Some daily, some weekly.

But all of them in a variety of different publications - meaning it's almost impossible to find out how many vacancies there are across the public sector, what kind of salaries are being offered, how these vary from public sector body to public sector body and whether functions are being duplicated.

Remember this is your money being put forward to give someone a job - and you have little way of finding out why, what for and for how much.

Now imagine if they were all published online and in a standardised way. Not only could you find out about vacancies for yourself, you could cross-reference what jobs are on offer and make sure your money is being put to proper use. Or what about patient outcomes in the NHS?

Some of the most important information you'll ever need to know, how long your Dad will survive if he gets cancer, your chances of a good life if you have a stroke, all this is out of your hands.

Now, again, imagine if this information was in your hands. You'd be able to compare your local hospital with others, and do something about it if it wasn't good enough.

Choose another hospital. Voice your complaint to a patient group. Make change happen.
All this data which would help people in this country hold the powerful to account - it's all locked away in some vault. And it's only getting worse.

Next week Ed Balls will publish proposals for a new report card, replacing league tables. That will reduce the amount of information being published, and reduce parent power to hold their school to account.

We're going to set this data free. In the first year of the next Conservative Government, we will find the most useful information in twenty different areas ranging from information about the NHS to information about schools and road traffic and publish it so people can use it.

This information will be published proactively and regularly - and in a standardised format so that it can be 'mashed up' and interacted with.

What's more, because there is no complete list that can tell us exactly what data the government collects, we will create a new 'right to data' so that further datasets can be requested by the public.

By harnessing the wisdom of the crowd, we can find out what information individuals think will be important in holding the state to account.

And to avoid bureaucrats blocking these requests, we will introduce a rule that any request will be successful unless it can be proved that it would lead to overwhelming costs or demonstrable personal privacy or national security concerns.

If we are serious about helping people exert more power over the state, we need to give them the information to do it. And as part of that process, we will review the role of the Information Commissioner to make sure that it is designed to maximise political accountability in our country.

Read the full speech here.

David Cameron on transparency and opening up politics

David Cameron speech on Fixing Broken Politics
Tuesday, May 26 2009

TRANSPARENCY

Everything I've spoken about - redistributing power to people, re-instating accountability in our politics...all of it will, I hope, help get more people involved in politics and public policy and help end that despairing sense of powerlessness that pervades our society.

But there's one more item on the agenda: transparency.

Ask most people where politics happens and they'd paint a picture of tight-knit tribes making important decisions in wood-panelled rooms, speaking a strange language.

If we want people to have faith and get involved, we need to defeat this impression by opening politics up - making everything transparent, accessible - and human.

And the starting point for reform should be a near-total transparency of the political and governing elite, so people can see what is being done in their name.

EXPENSES AND SPENDING

First because transparency tears down the hiding places for sleaze, over-spending and corruption.

Soon enough all MPs' expenses are going to be published online for everyone to see...I and the rest of the Shadow Cabinet are already doing it.

And if we win the next election, we're going to do the same thing for all other public servants earning over £150,000.

Just imagine the effect that an army of armchair auditors is going to have on those expense claims.

Indeed, the promise of public scrutiny is going to have a powerful effect on over-spending of any variety.

A Conservative Government will put all national spending over £25,000 online for everyone to see, so citizens can hold the Government to account for how their tax money is being spent.

And we will extend this principle of transparency to every nook and cranny of politics and public life because it is one of the quickest and easiest ways to transfer power to the powerless and prevent waste, exploitation and abuse.

That's why, for example, all our Conservative candidates for the European Parliament have signed a pledge setting out new standards of transparency and ethical behaviour.

Every Conservative MEP elected next week will publish online a breakdown of all office costs, all travel, names of each member of staff they employ, and details of all meetings with businesses, lobbyists and other interest groups.

OPENING UP POLITICS

But transparency isn't just about cleaning up politics, it's also about opening up politics.

Right now a tiny percentage of the population craft legislation that will apply to one hundred percent of the population.

This locks out countless people across the country whose expertise could help.

So why not invite them in on the process?

We'll create a right of initiative nationally, where if you collect enough signatures you can get your proposals debated in the House of Commons and become law.

And we'll open up the legislative process in other ways too.

The way bills are published online today is stifling innovation and blocking democratic engagement.

So a Conservative government will publish all Parliamentary information online in an open-source format.

This will help people easily access Bills and other legislation in order to create useful applications - like text alerts when something you're interested in is debated.

And it will mean many more expert eyes helping to explain laws as they're formed, flagging up flaws and suggestions for improvement.

Anything that acts as a barrier between politics and the public has got to be torn down - including the ridiculous ban on parliamentary proceedings being uploaded to YouTube.

We need a change of government to drive through this transparency agenda because let's face it, we're not going to get it from Gordon Brown and the Labour government...who tried to block the publication of MPs' expenses by exempting Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act.

But this spirit of glasnost needs to extend beyond Parliament and throughout our political parties too.

One of the reforms I'm most proud of is the widespread introduction of open primaries for the selection of Conservative parliamentary candidates in recent years.

I want to see that continue, with much greater use of open primaries for the selection of parliamentary candidates - and not just in the Conservative Party, but every party.

In time, this will have a transformative effect on our politics, taking power from the party elites and the old boy networks and giving it to the people.

Read the full text