FOI truths, or myths?
Here are three statements frequently made about freedom of information:
- Freedom of information is for the ordinary citizen
- There would be no need for FOI requests if government published more information proactively
- Freedom of information has a chilling effect on the quality of advice and the public record
Based on their detailed evaluation of the impact of FOI on Whitehall, Robert Hazell, Ben Worthy and Mark Glover argue that FOI is not much used by ordinary citizens, that more proactive publication is unlikely to anticipate what FOI requesters actually want, and that they could find "very little evidence" of a significant chilling effect.
Their research is reported in a recently published book, The Impact of the Freedom of Information Act on Central Government in the UK: Does FOI Work?. So, does FOI work? The authors conclude that it does in some ways and it doesn't in other ways.
They say it makes government more open and accountable, promotes efficiency and acts as a check on the integrity of government. But it doesn't produce better decision-making, increase public participation or encourage trust in government.
I can see how these conclusions make sense, given the sort of material which has actually been released under freedom of information. Facts and figures about the spending of public money, the performance of public services, the statistical measurement of government activities - FOI has thrust a lot of this information into the public domain, and there are now many well-established precedents for disclosure of such data.
But compared to what many expected there has been a thinner supply of releases relating to policy debate, internal discussion and decision-making processes. And Whitehall is often, though not always, highly resistant to revealing this kind of information.
For some that is a disappointing outcome. For others who are worried about the threat of a chilling effect undermining the frankness of advice and discussion, it may be a good thing - even if it means that freedom of information hasn't achieved the rather grand goal of empowering the public that Tony Blair proclaimed for it, before he decided that FOI wasn't such a good idea after all.
[Declaration of interest: I was one of those interviewed by the Constitution Unit researchers for their report.]
A 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~09~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Working in an already busy press office, the FoI legislation has considerably added our workloads thanks to numerous round robin emails from all manner of media publications going on information fishing expeditions to see if they can find an angle to generate a story. Time consuming, usually without foundation, and the major cause for an increase in lazy journalism.
Complain about this comment
Martin Rosenbaum.
"Freedom of information is for the ordinary citizen"
FOI is for everybody, yes, the 'ordinary citizen' benefits, but so do companies bidding for public works contracts. in any case, the real point surely is that there is no downside to (public) information being publically available.
"There would be no need for FOI requests if government published more information proactively"
in an ideal world we'd have constitutional rights akin to the US Americans or some of the more enlightened European nations, and our government would be duty-bound to publish all available information. (that might also help to keep our spooks in check a little better)
all government activity is paid for with our (tax) monies, ergo we own the information.
"Freedom of information has a chilling effect on the quality of advice and the public record"
do you mean it does make the covering up of corrupt behaviour that much more difficult?
well, good!
Complain about this comment
From the End of Award Report, on trust in government -
"First, public perceptions are influenced by the minority of FOI stories that achieve prominence. These frequently involve controversy, negative aspects of performance, and cases of resistance or apparently secretive behaviour. FOI is subsumed within the wider conflict between parts of the press and government, with government seeing information as being distorted and journalists seeing it as being withheld, manipulated or ‘spun’. Secondly, it is not simply an issue of media and government relations, as FOI is shaped by pre-existing low levels of trust. The media report stories that conform to poor expectations of politicians."
Complain about this comment
I don't know who counts as 'an ordinary citizen' but I regularly use FoI for no other reason than I am a bit nosy, or interested in why a decision was made. However, I am currently drafting a letter of complaint to the Vice Chancellor of my old University using data I have gathered using FoI.
I do find that some organisations start asking questions along the line of 'why do you want to know' (suspicious of whether you are an ordinary citizen or not) - which they are not entitled to ask, I usually just deal with the relevant FoI officer who knows (or should know) not to ask such questions.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
View these comments in RSS