More bovver with Rovver
I wrote last month about how the website WhatDoTheyKnow.com is clearly irritating some FOI officers who don't like the way it encourages and processes freedom of information requests. This ambitious site publishes the requests, the answers, and the intervening correspondence for all to see - an approach which is clearly taking transparency too far for some.
My thanks to mikeludkipz for his recent comment, drawing attention to the fact that Rother District Council is still in a lot of bother over how it deals with FOI requests through this site.
After first continuing with its previous (but apparently futile) practice of seeking postal rather than email addresses from requesters, Rother has then been telling them: 'would you please note that the response will be personal to yourself and that no consent to publish it, for instance on a web site, is given.'
As the site itself comments: 'This request has had an unusual response, and requires attention from the WhatDoTheyKnow team.'
Rother Council goes on to state: 'Any application for consent to re-use information will be considered under the Re-use of Public Sector Inforamtion Regulations 2005, but if consent is given a charge may be made to you.'
What was it the old lawnmower ad said? Something like 'it's a lot more bovver with a Rovver'?
I did ask the council to explain its policy. They were very polite, but they said that sadly they weren't able to do that this week while the relevant person is on leave.
A 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~39~RS~)
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I particularly like the FOI request about how the council categorises web sites.
In all seriousness though WhatDoTheyKnow is a great site for encouraging transparency in the whole FOI process. Also by monitoring the requests on behalf of other people they can collect statistics on who does what well, and who does it badly.
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"[i]the response will be personal to yourself[/i]"
So Rother don't believe FOI is 'applicant blind' and that 'disclosure is disclosure to the world at large'??
And surely the Re-Use of Public Sector Info Regs would only apply if whatdotheyknow were going to publish the info for commercial gain? By charging a subscription fee for members of the site, for example.
If I were Rother I'd just get on with responding to requests, and quit whining before they make themselves look even sillier.
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ooops, I used the wrong type of brackets for my italic html formatting... soz!
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Rother's note about the response being personal to the requester does not say or imply that they are not going to send the response. I think they are just covering their backs - which is fair enough, as long as they still send the response to the request!
For that reason, I've marked the request as "waiting response" again.
You might find our, relatively new, FOI officers FAQ section interesting.
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/about#officers
Francis (WhatDoTheyKnow)
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"Rother's note about the response being personal to the requester does not say or imply that they are not going to send the response. I think they are just covering their backs - which is fair enough, as long as they still send the response to the request!"
But whether they will respond or not isn't the point - it's the fact that they seem not to have grasped the concept that FOI is applicant blind. If the response is personal to Mr A, will Mr B get a different 'personal' response if he makes the same request?? Disclosure under FOI is disclosure to the world at large. Which is why publishing FOI responses on the whatdotheyknow website isn't a problem - provided they aren't published for commercial gain.
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Section 8 of the Act clearly has them on dodgy ground over the request for a postal address
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_2#pt1-pb1-l1g8
On the request being "personal" and not for transmission to a third party, section 11 to my mind puts this in the hands of the Commissioner, who I think is unlikely to be sympathetic.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000036_en_2#pt1-pb1-l1g11
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Well done for highlighting this! However, I am interest in the legal position by which they think they can label information "personal" and prevent it being published?
The information is clearly not protected by any government secrecy laws (e.g. national security) because it would not be released in the first place.
I do not believe they can make you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and if you don't then you cannot be bound by one that one party decides to unilaterally apply.
I doubt that they could claim it was copyrighted either. All you would have to do is extract the data and reformat it because it is the original work that is copyrighted and not data itself(?).
Any one with any legal qualification care to comment?
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#7 Simonmw3
I believe Rother District Council would be able to claim copyright for their replies, as any response would be; 1. a literary work 2. original (they wrote the replies themselves) and 3. of material form (digital works are classed as literary works).
Therefore, unless whatdotheyknow get consent to reproduce the emails, I think they could be open to being sued for copyright infringement, especially as consent has been expressly denied;
"no consent to publish it, for instance on a web site, is given"
There is of course the argument (and one which I believe would win if this case went to court) that whatdotheyknow could be outside of copyright law by invoking Fair Dealing, but it would be down to them to prove that the purposes of copying and publishing the emails falls into one of these categories;
1. research or private study
2. criticism or review
3. reporting current events
Whether Rother District Council would be foolish enough to actually pull this in front of the courts is another question.....
By the way, I have found all this information here;
http://ahds.ac.uk/copyrightfaq.htm#faq26
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I mean here;
http://ahds.ac.uk/copyrightfaq.htm
ignore the #faq26 bit....
;o)
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Could you check into the Met Office refusal to release correspondence between Dr. Mitchell and the IPCC?
Despite IPCC requirements that all emails etc are kept for at least 5 years, the Met Office claim that emails have been destroyed as Dr. Mitchell was acting in a personal capacity, when he acted as an IPCC Review Editor, and not as an employee of the Met Office, even though the Met Office proudly claim to be participants in the IPCC process.
This refusal looks like they have something to hide, although I am sure they haven't
Further details can be found at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3208
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@8 s_slatt:
Although Rother may be able to claim that copyright _exists_ in their replies, I don't think in most cases they can claim it rests with them. Anything created by a Council official in the course of their duties automatically falls under Crown Copyright.
Whether the Crown (presumably through OPSI?) would choose to enforce this copyright in relation to information disclosed under FOI is an interesting question, but in most cases I would personally suspect the answer is no.
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#11 foiyeur
Sorry, yes, you are probably right that they themselves do not own the copyright.
And I fully agree with your second point, I can't imagine anyone being taken to court over publishing details in relation to a freedom of information request.
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Many thanks to Mr Rosenbaum for highlighting this issue, and to Francis from whatdotheyknow for the excellent work which they do.
It does seem strange that Rotham Council are taking an adversarial approach to this exercise, for whatever reason I cannot begin to imagine.
As has been said, the matter of a publicly funded body going out of its way to block the free dissemination of, what is after all, a reply to a Freedom of Information request, surely goes against the spirit of how this legislation was intended to work?
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