Letter to The Times responding to an article by Matthew Parris arguing that “the advance of Freedom of Information should be reversed.”
Letter to The Times responding to an article by Matthew Parris arguing that “the advance of Freedom of Information should be reversed.”
In this podcast, Maurice Frankel and Katherine Gundersen of the Campaign talk to Nicholas Jones about new threats to the FOI Act and their fear that the review of the Act by the House of Commons Justice Committee could lead to new restrictions
The Freedom of Information Act is being reviewed by a parliamentary committee which is likely to recommend changes to the law. This could be an important opportunity to improve the Act. But there will also be significant pressure for new restrictions from public authorities concerned about the cost of dealing with FOI requests or lobbying for new exemptions.
If you would like to contribute to the exercise, it is important to act quickly. The deadline for submitting evidence to the committee is 3 February 2012. The Campaign for Freedom of Information is holding a briefing meeting on January 18 at 2 pm for those who are considering giving evidence.
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The Campaign for Freedom of Information welcomed today’s guidance from the Information Commissioner confirming that emails dealing with public authority business sent using officials’ private email accounts are subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The guidance points out that the same is true regardless of where information dealing with official business is held. This is because the Act applies not only to information held by a public authority but also to information held by “another person on behalf of the authority”.
Response to the Cabinet Office’s ‘Making Open Data Real’ consultation. The response emphasises the extent to which the government’s vision of improvements to accountability, service quality, efficiency, choice and citizen empowerment depend on the FOI Act, since (a) although data may highlight discrepancies in performance, the broader right of access provided by the FOI Act is needed to understand what is behind them and (b) the ‘right to data’ proposals are being implemented for public authorities by amendments to the FOI Act itself. It also points out that both the FOI Act and open data proposals will be undermined by the contracting out provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill and the Localism Bill. Finally, it argues that the abuse of copyright restrictions, which the government’s amendments address, is not restricted to datasets but applies to ordinary disclosures under the FOI Act.
The First-tier Tribunal has published its report to the Court of Appeal in the case of Dominic Kennedy v Information Commissioner (EA/2008/0083). The case relates to a request by Dominic Kennedy, a journalist with The Times, for information concerning the Charity Commission’s investigations into George Galloway’s ‘Mariam Appeal’. The Charity Commission refused the request citing the absolute exemption in section 32(2) of the FOI Act for information held solely for the purpose of a statutory inquiry. The refusal was upheld by the Information Commissioner, the First-tier Tribunal and the High Court.
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Universities UK, the representative organisation of universities in the UK, is lobbying for an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act to exempt research information. An amendment was tabled to the Protection of Freedoms Bill by Andrew Miller MP to introduce a new subsection to the section 22 exemption for information intended for future publication. The amendment was identical to section 27(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act.
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