Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-124)
MAURICE FRANKEL,
STEVE WOOD
AND DAVID
HENCKE
28 MARCH 2006
Q120 Chairman: Would I be right to
assume that, if it was a member of the public, they might be deterred
and that The Guardian or certain other newspapers might
not be deterred if they had to find some extra money to deal with
a request?
Maurice Frankel: Under the scheme
we are talking about, you would not be asked to pay more. What
you would find is that the amount of work that would be done for
you would be sharply reduced, by taking the time into consideration.
I do not think that this is the problem to do with frivolous requests.
I think that they are two separate things. I think that this is
to do with the volume of work that is coming into departments
from genuine requests, not frivolous requests. I think that is
the perceived problem.
Q121 Dr Whitehead: From Steve Wood's
thoughts on this matter, although there is only anecdotal evidence,
it does not seem to you that there appears to be a large volume
of frivolous requests taking place. As you have pointed out, David
Hencke, there is a mechanism which could prevent that taking place.
Is there any evidence, in your view, of the mechanism being widely
adopted by responding authorities so far?
Maurice Frankel: The Commissioner's
decision, his first decision, was upholding a local authority
judging that a series of very large requests from one individual
over a short period of time were vexatious. I think that will
probably signal to authorities that that remedy is available to
them. The Government does not get a very good press on human rights,
civil liberties issues, particularly with the terrorism legislation
and so on. This is one of the two things that it has done—the
Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act—that
tells the other side of the story. The history of the Freedom
of Information Act has been that, as soon as they have made a
good proposal, they have attracted bad publicity by going immediately
in the wrong direction—a poor draft bill, a long delay in
implementing it. I think that they are at the point at which they
are beginning to get credit, people are beginning to notice that
this Government has done this; it helps the ordinary citizen.
People are reading about it every day in their newspapers. I think
they are at the point at which the Government itself might actually
get some credit for this legislation, and I think that it would
be a good idea for them not to get involved in that for the time
being and just let the legislation take root.
Q122 Dr Whitehead: I was going to
say "a better spin therefore", but perhaps that is a
cynical thing to suggest. Steve Wood, you have mentioned in your
written evidence that a number of responding authorities appear
to be costing the response based on a paper search, where they
have electronic records management systems and the cost of searching
through a system, therefore, is presumably the cost of moving
the finger to the button and divulging the information. Do you
have some examples of that problem arising in terms of responses?
Steve Wood: I have not actually
appealed any of those cases, but you are really very much in the
dark as to what systems are in place. You are told in your response
that it would exceed the cost limit to locate and retrieve those
files. You very much have either to accept what they say—that
it would take that many hours up to the full £450 or the
£600 limit—or not. Having worked in the public sector
myself, you often know if there is one individual with the knowledge
of where those files are located or whether there is an electronic
document records management system in place, where they could
conduct a search for that information, but you have no real evidence
to say that they have even attempted the search for you. It is
almost that they give you the response straight back, saying immediately,
"Your request is too general" or "It would immediately
breach the cost limit". So you are very much in the position
of being in the dark. It is very difficult and, until we get a
case to go to the Information Commissioner and for him to investigate
how they have put together the calculation of the time it would
take to locate and retrieve that information, you may not know
what is actually happening in those examples.
Q123 Dr Whitehead: Do you have any
suggestions or thoughts about how that potential difficulty in
judging the real cost of retrieval might be resolved?
Steve Wood: I think that it will
be the Information Commissioner stepping in at a very early stage,
to check to make sure that a search actually has been attempted
on any electronic system, and not to accept an approach which
says, "There are lots of paper files that have to be gone
through". In some cases that may definitely be true, but
it is to make sure that at least the relevant searches have been
attempted; and to make sure that that cost calculation is fair.
Maurice Frankel: I think that
the authorities should explain how they have calculated the cost
and why they think it would take that number of hours. I know
that in many cases authorities do a little trial run. They sit
down, they get five files out and go through those files and see
how much of the information they can get and how long it takes
them. I think that people would be impressed if they saw the work
that the authorities had done; but when you see what they say
to the applicant, they say, "We've calculated that it would
cost £600 to find this information", and nothing more.
Immediately, the suspicions come to the surface; but sometimes,
when you see what they have done, you are quite impressed by what
they have done.
Steve Wood: It is in the letter
which comes back to the applicant. If it was explained clearly
to you about how that time was taken, it would perhaps also stop
some of the complaints going to the Information Commissioner.
Q124 Chairman: Is there anything
else you want to say on the records management aspect of it? Is
this a situation in which the main driver for records management
in public bodies ought to be the Commissioner and his response
to information requests, or do we have some other mechanisms?
Steve Wood: I think that, on records
management, the drivers for that before the Act came in were very
much putting retention policies and schedules in place, to make
sure that certain types of information were kept for relevant
reasons. The obvious other benefit is the efficiency savings which
should be developed from having an adequate records management
system, in terms of the response time. Most public authorities
are still on part of the curve of learning how to use these systems.
It is very early days to see where the benefits are emerging.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
We are very grateful for your help, and we also read what some
of you write on the subject. We will continue our evidence sessions
this afternoon, and we will be reporting in due course. Many thanks
for your help.
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