WhatDoTheyPost
The WhatDoTheyKnow site - which facilitates the making of FOI requests - has been more successful than I expected in terms of the number of requests which have been made via the site.
But it also seems to be annoying some of those people on the receiving end of the requests. Some are not happy that the way it works means that the entire correspondence between requester and public authority is made available to all through posting it on the internet, not just the information eventually disclosed (as in this case).
An official from Norfolk County Council complained about this at the FOILIve conference last week. And I heard similar complaints yesterday from some Police FOI officers at a meeting organised by ACPO.
However the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas was pretty dismissive of this complaint. It looks like FOI officers will have to learn to live with it.
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Hi! We've just this week made a couple of changes following this kind of feedback.
One is to remove mobile phone numbers (which are often personal, and in email signatures of FOI officers).
The other is to put back in a warning on request emails, saying we're going to publish the correspondence, and linking to this new section of our help page http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about#officers
I'm hoping that FOI officers will take this warning as intended, to stop them including their own personal information in correspondence. Last time we tried, we had one officer not reject requests for spurious copyright reasons
Suggestions for wording improvements welcome.
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I note the lastest response on the WDTK site is from the BBC, where they declare that they do not consider full post-codes to be 'personal data' (responding to a request about Freesat). This goes against the Information Commissioner's opinion - see Decision Notice FS50169424.
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Why do we need a FOI service, since it is the right of the media, to get access to information.
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dennisjunior11 wrote:
"Why do we need a FOI service, since it is the right of the media, to get access to information."
It's not the right of the media, it's the right of the public - the media just happen to be part of the public. Besides, what happens when you want information that the media doesn't want to do a story on.
This s a great service and if FOI officers are not willing to have their justifications for releasing/not releasing data open to public scrutiny then it makes a mockery of the whole idea of Freedom of Information.
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Rother District Council are apparently still unhappy about whatdotheyknow, as can be seen by their most recent responses to requests.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/rother_district_council
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I was just looking at the whatdotheyknow website, and noticed that one particular user has, since joining the site on the 17th July 2008, submitted 442 FOI requests to various authorities.
I'm all for FOI, but surely that's going a bit OTT. It's an average of around 10 requests a day, and I dread to think what the collective cost to the public purse of dealing with his requests alone is.
Actually, I've just looked back - in the moments it's taken me to write the above, said user has submitted another 2, so it's 444. And from the look of things, he's systematically working his way through the councils of England alphabetically, so I guess this number will rise significantly over the course of the day...
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...467
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The individual has now posted over 650 requests and there are others who are making very large volumes of requests. I agree with the comment above, I rather like the FOI Act (it's my job) but there are downsides and one of them is the fact that it costs large amounts of public money to answer enquiries. A justifiable cost, in the main, transparency improves democracy - but should a few individuals who, perhaps, are a little bit obsessed be able to make so many requests, to so many public bodies, at such expense?
I have no problem with the concept of "whatdotheyknow" and the publishing of responses, but the name of the website will attract conspiracy theorists!
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The chap I had noticed has made 522 requests; so it must be somebody else that has submitted over 650! Between them that's a hefty 1200+ FOI requests.
The potential cost to the public purse of one chap's 522 requests is £247,848.
That is assuming the maximum cost at which a public authority must respond (i.e. £449). If some of the requests were made to central government, where the cost limit is higher (£600 per request), then the potential cost of all his requests is even greater.
552 requests in what I calculate to be approximately 60 working days; potentially a quarter of a million pounds of public money in 60 working days' worth of information seeking...
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For some reason the pound sign is displaying as a square in my previous post!
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I work for a small borough council and am really proud of how hard staff work to respond to request quickly and as openly as possible. We are now averaging over 1 request a day and these requests (some up to 6 pages long) are dealt with by busy staff who are constantly trying to make efficiency savings while also having to respond to FoI requests.
The requests from ?WhatDoTheyKnow? have, so far, without exception been written in an belligerent confrontational style. There is no need for requests to be phrased this way and this has had a negative request on staff dealing with these requests.
Please could this web site look at some of the submissions, not just for the number of requests submitted by a few individuals but the way in which they are worded.
The idea of the site is good but a very small minority of its users appear to be misusing it.
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"The requests from ?WhatDoTheyKnow? have, so far, without exception been written in an belligerent confrontational style. There is no need for requests to be phrased this way and this has had a negative request on staff dealing with these requests."
I've worked for the council dealing face to face with the public in the licensing department.
No matter how angry and belligerent the complainant, I was never paid to cry about it. I was paid to provide them with the information they needed, to help them use council services and to be impartial and objective. If your ability to source information and send it to the correct person is affected by the email being insufficiently polite and subservient, then you are in the wrong job.
The reason these requests are written in a confrontational style is that the state takes a confrontational stance in responding to them. The state has the attitude that everything should be witheld unless there is a very good reason to release it, whereas the public are of the view that all should be open unless there is reason to withold it. Just look what happened with Rother District Council.
I made a request through the site and I twice had to remind the council that they were beyond the statutory time limit for responding. Eventually, I sent an email with a link to the whatdotheyknow site saying, "You are breaking the law by not responding to me and here is a public record of the fact." I received the information I had asked for the next day.
"Please could this web site look at some of the submissions, not just for the number of requests submitted by a few individuals but the way in which they are worded."
I find this to be highly arrogant. There is no limit to the number of times you can request information from the government. The fact that you think there is just shows your lack of commitment to/understanding of the principles of Freedom of Information.
People have the right to know what our public servants are doing in our name and that right is unaffected by the fact that you don't feel they are showing you enough deference in the wording of their requests.
"The idea of the site is good but a very small minority of its users appear to be misusing it."
How is that even possible? The site allows you to make FOI requests and nothing else. Show me someone using it to make pancakes and you might have a point.
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http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/fred_robinson_2
Rather entertaining reading this chap's requests. Entertaining in a kind of slightly excruciating way.
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