Letter to Lord McNally on government’s proposed FOI restrictions

The Campaign has written to the Justice minister Lord McNally urging the government to drop its proposals to make it easier for public authorities to refuse FOI requests on costs grounds. The Campaign says the proposals are now redundant in light of recent decisions of the Upper Tribunal and new guidance published by the Information Commissioner which allow requests causing a disproportionate burden to be refused as vexatious.

 

Update 17/06/2013: Lord McNally has replied to the Campaign saying he agrees that recent case law on vexatious requests helps address the problem of disproportionately burdensome requests. The letter confirms the government is assessing the options to reduce the burden of FOI that were contained in its response to the Justice Committee’s post-legislative scrutiny of the FOI Act, before consulting on proposals later in the summer.

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