Training advice
106. Another concern raised by our witnesses has
been training advice. The BMA reported that guidance and training
has been non-existent in some cases:
a number of GPs have reported that training has
been unhelpful or non existent and the information they have received
has been minimal. As a result, some GPs have had to research the
requirements under the Act on the internet themselves. Some practices
claim to have never received anything and only found out about
their obligations through speaking to colleagues".[146]
The LGA told the Committee that concern had been
expressed about the availability of good-quality training, as
some of the commercial training courses could give misleading
information. For example, it quoted a comment from a LGA member
as follows:
When I attended a seminar (held by a law firm)
around October last year, we were told that the request had to
be from inside the UK to be a valid request.[147]
In fact, any foreign national or UK citizen,
whether resident in the UK or abroad, can make a FOI request as
long as a name and address is provided.
107. Some local authorities felt that the Information
Commissioner or the DCA should have either carried out training
or provided a list of recommended/approved trainers.[148]
According to one of our witnesses, the Manchester group of authorities
simply set up their in-house training scheme, "purchased
as a consortium from a private company because we could
not wait for an e-learning package to come out from the Government".[149]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State tried to claim that
the range of training needs for FOI implementation was so broad
so as to make any attempt at a core training syllabus unworkable.
We have tried to suggest to organisations that
they need to identify their own training needs within the framework
of what we think they need to be able to do and to have done,
and then to determine, in the way that they normally wouldbecause
they buy and organise training all the timewhat is needed
in their particular organisation. To be too prescriptive would
have been wrong, because it is different in each different case.[150]
108. Given that the guidance that was required to
structure such training properly was only put on the DCA website
on 1 July 2004,[151]
it is not surprising that public bodies either did not undertake
training or instead formulated their own programmes expecting
to have to amend them once the DCA delivered what it had promised.
In our view the DCA should have recognised the need for training
to start earlier and should have issued relevant advice in a timely
way.
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