The Mad Hatter's time lesson
Last week the information commissioner issued a decision in his oldest outstanding freedom of information case - one that his office has taken the not inconsiderable timespan of four years and five months to determine.
If anyone is still interested, the case involves a request to the Scotland Office for material relating to the Sewel Convention, the convention that Westminster does not normally legislate on matters devolved to Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
The Scotland Office initially turned down the request, but did release some documents during the commissioner's investigation. And the commissioner has now decided [128KB PDF] that the government was right "for the most part" to keep the rest secret.
Earlier this month the information commissioner's office disposed of another case over four years old (possibly, like buses, after a long wait several ICO decisions come along at once). This one relates to the Hawk 128 advanced jet trainer aircraft, and the commissioner has again decided [116KB PDF] in favour of the partial release of further material.
However, as the latest snapshot [166KB PDF] of the ICO's caseload indicates, the commissioner is still dealing with several other complaints that date back to 2005, most of them involving the Cabinet Office (one of which is mine).
The new Commissioner Chris Graham made some interesting remarks about the delays in his office on an episode last week of the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action, which assessed the state of FOI nearly five years after it came into force.
Mr Graham admitted that his office took too long to consider complaints, saying "We're not as efficient as we should be". He added that measures were in place to speed up, and that he was also telling public authorities that they had to make the FOI process more straightforward.
He described freedom of information as a cumbersome process like "a complicated stately dance with many parties", so that "it's a question of 'Will you walk a little faster?, said the whiting to the snail'".
This reference to the Lobster Quadrille in Alice in Wonderland, where the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon dance slowly and sadly round Alice while treading on her toes, may indeed capture some of the spirit of how the FOI system operates.
But if Mr Graham and his team are really seeking inspiration from a character in Alice in Wonderland, perhaps they have most to learn from the Mad Hatter.
He informs Alice that as long as you keep on good terms with Time, he'll do almost anything you want with the clock. He can make it go from nine in the morning to half-past one, time for dinner, in a twinkling. Equally well, he can "keep it to half-past one as long as you liked".
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The Information Commissioner would probably have less to do if some parts of government were to answer their questions in a more timely manner. At the moment it seems that when you ask a question, they're supposed to answer it within 20 days. If this doesn't happen, you either keep waiting or request an internal review and wait another 20 days. Once that deadline has passed, it appears that either you can keep waiting or appeal to the IC. Having requested some data from DCSF back in July, I'm still waiting. The dilemma is whether I should keep waiting or whether to push it to the IC, where I might have to wait even longer. It wasn't even sensitive data, apart from the fact that lack of an answer shows up a flagship databasde in a bad light if it can't provide that answer quickly and efficiently.
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The BBC is hardly a paragon of virtue in this area: it regularly delays its own responses to requests and internal reviews, and their negative attitude to releasing information will inevitably put more load on the ICO in handling appeals against them. See this request of mine for an example.
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Sometimes the timeliness of the information is important and Government departmenst will use an excuse to delay publication until the moment or attention has passed.
Therefore, it is good news if the new Commissioner is able to speed things up. However, can we not have a "sunset" clause in the FOI Act which says information must be provided unless the Commissioner has ruled that it should not within a certain time limit eg 3 months?
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That must mean mine is now the oldest unanswered complaint...
The Information Commissioner has been his own worst enemy since the inception of FOI - instead of starting from a positon of strength and demanding compliance and seeking immediate enforcement when authorities fail (or refuse) to comply, he decided to adopt a pathetically weak and apologist stance by asking and reminding and giving chance after chance after chance after chance to recalcitrant authorities which clearly favoured government departments and never requesters.
He (or rather his predecessor) created a culture of non-compliance by his persistent refusal to ever adequately censure public authorities for their lack of responses and they know that they will never be held to account so where is the incentive to comply?
By way of example, the MOD have been issued with a practice recommendation about how they should handle requests for Internal Review and they are blatantly ignoring it. (I have a case in which they have done so), I have reported their refusal to comply with the practice recommendation and what has the ICO done? Nothing.
There need to be meaningful penalties and an Information Commissioner who actually believes in Freedom of Information - not a lap dog who will simply do as he is told and continue to foster the culture of paranoid obsessive secrecy the narcissistic megalomaniacs in Whitehall demand.
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Maybe they need more staff to get information.
I am free at present Any takers?
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This may be a good example of why the economic stimulus funding has yet to result in actual projects. Maybe they will schedule another meeting.
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