Conclusions and recommendations
1. This
is an important piece of legislation and one which is very welcome—the
Committee fully supports its aims and looks forward to its successful
operation in the future. (Paragraph 1)
2. Given the decision
to implement the Act across the whole public sector at the same
time, the process of implementation has created special challenges.
We recognise the practical difficulties placed on those responsible
for implementing this legislation on a single start date. (Paragraph
17)
3. The structured
approach of ACPO created an impression of much greater readiness
for full implementation than the two other areas of public service
which we examined. Although ACPO is only an advisory body, the
organisational traditions of the Police Service lend themselves
to a more coherent overall approach to the implementation of freedom
of information legislation than other areas of the public service
which may involve independent professional practitioners or a
diverse range of activities on widely differing scales. We doubt
that many areas of the public service, away from central government,
can be as confident as the Police Service of full implementation
on 1 January 2005. (Paragraph 25)
4. ACPO concerns were
focused on certain areas. Central guidance appears to have been
lacking in important areas including organising co-operation between
different departments and agencies, ensuring consistency between
different police forces in dealing with requests and lateness
in producing general guidance on technical issues such as IT systems.
It is also clear that a significant change occurred from June
2003, possibly as a result of staff changes in the DCA. (Paragraph
34)
5. Some of the evidence
on implementation of FOI in the health sector gave the impression
of FOI simply being regarded as another hurdle that had to be
surmounted, with little sign of the cultural change in attitudes
towards openness which the DCA has suggested will follow from
FOI. (Paragraph 44)
6. It is clear from
its evidence that the BMA does not believe that the message on
FOI implementation has been given effective profile. (Paragraph
47)
7. It is not clear
that the whole of the health sector will be in a position to comply
fully with the law on 1 January 2005. There are significant problems
with ensuring consistency of approach across such a wide range
of bodies which are covered by the Act. We do not underestimate
the difficulties associated with introducing FOI on one date across
the whole of the health service. Nevertheless, there is little
evidence that the DCA has been sufficiently active in providing
the necessary leadership to ensure that many of the organisational
and technical problems have been addressed in time in this sector.
(Paragraph 49)
8. We believe that
Chief Executives in all local authorities should ensure full compliance
with FOI. (Paragraph 57)
9. While many local
authorities will be compliant with the FOI legislation when it
comes fully into force in January 2005, some will not. Successful
compliance will be dependent on a relatively low initial level
of requests. A 'business as usual' approach is far from the intention
of the Act, which aimed to introduce a culture change in the handling
of information. It seems clear that, so far, too few common standards
for handling FOI requests across local government have been established.
It is likely that different local authorities will handle similar
requests in very different ways. (Paragraph 63)
10. Late guidance
from the DCA on such matters as fees has meant that issues of
central importance have had to be addressed by local government
at the last moment. We are concerned that the necessary guidance
for enabling all staff to understand the requirements of the Act
has been produced so late. In some respects the result has been
that local government has been given a few weeks rather than four
years to prepare fully for the advent of FOI. (Paragraph 64)
11. The picture which
emerged from the evidence we received was of uneven levels of
success and a strong perception of a lack of strategic control
and support from central government to other public bodies. The
cause appears to have been a combination of a lack of consistent
leadership by the DCA and an unclear division of responsibility
for implementation between the DCA, the Information Commissioner's
Office (ICO) and other government departments. (Paragraph 72)
12. There appears
to have been some confusion amongst public sector bodies about
where to seek advice and about which department or agency was
responsible for supporting them. (Paragraph 74)
13. We formed the
impression from the evidence provided that the high staff turnover
in the DCA during the period between the agreement of publication
schemes in the summer of 2003 and the autumn of 2004 seriously
interfered with the delivery of co-ordination. (Paragraph 81)
14. The approach has
been to rely on the FOI Champions in each organisation to take
responsibility for energising the organisations and ensuring adequate
preparations for compliance. While this appears to have worked
quite well amongst some central government departments, the approach
does not seem to have achieved consistent results. Lack of consistency
was a message repeatedly relayed to the Committee, as well as
a failure to share good practice early enough across differing
sectors. (Paragraph 84)
15. In the course
of preparing evidence for this inquiry a number of public bodies
reviewed their preparations for implementation. While this was
welcome, we would have liked to have seen more evidence that the
Department was encouraging this degree of thoroughness at an earlier
stage. (Paragraph 86)
16. We do not consider
that the question of possible extensions of the time limit of
20 days for responding to FOI requests has been effectively handled
by the DCA in respect of public sector bodies outside central
government. (Paragraph 90)
17. The Department's
attitude to questions relating to the nomination of qualified
persons able to grant exemptions and related training, which are
exercising those who will have to implement the Act, illustrates
deficiencies in its approach to supporting the process towards
implementation. (Paragraph 95)
18. Guidance on exemptions
is a further example of late decision-making which reduced the
amount of preparation time to a matter of weeks for legislation
which has been on the statute book for four years. (Paragraph
96)
19. We welcome the
Department's decision to waive fees for requests below £450/£600
which will cover the vast majority of requests. However, this
decision came unnecessarily late and created avoidable uncertainty
for the public sector bodies concerned. Detailed guidance on the
fees regime still has not been produced and needs to be as a matter
of urgency. (Paragraph 99)
20. While the removal
of fees for the majority of applications is a positive step towards
encouraging ease of access to official information, under the
terms of the Act there is no requirement for public bodies to
make information available if the cost of retrieval exceeds these
limits. While public bodies may choose to provide the information
on a full-cost basis, there is no requirement under the Act to
do so. Paradoxically, while the non-imposition of fees will make
many applications easier, this may also mean in effect that any
request for information that takes more than 2-3 days to retrieve
can be refused. Therefore, whether intended or not, the setting
of the fees limit sets an arbitrary and potentially vast exemption
to the scope of information which can be required to be produced.
Notwithstanding this fact, the ICO emphasised to the Committee
that this did not remove a public body's obligation to give what
assistance it could. (Paragraph 100)
21. We hope that the
decision to waive fees for most FOI requests does not inadvertently
lead to a more restrictive approach to the application of freedom
of information. (Paragraph 101)
22. It is clear from
other evidence we have received that a number of publication schemes
may not have met the aim of the freedom of information legislation,
notably in the medical sector. (Paragraph 105)
23. 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. (Paragraph
108)
24. It is unclear
what level of requests will be faced by public bodies following
full implementation on 1 January 2005: will it be a flood of requests
or a trickle? It is reasonable to suppose that there are some
requests waiting in the pipeline, but only time will tell about
the extent of the use of FOI. If an initial flood of requests
leads to an unexpectedly large number of complaints, we believe
that the DCA must ensure that the Information Commissioner is
properly resourced to deal with them. Whether the system is used
a great deal or very little, the law requires that all areas of
the public service covered by the legislation should be ready
on 1 January 2005. We are not confident that adequate preparations
have been made to ensure that this will be achieved. (Paragraph
116)
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