Examination of Witnesses (Questions 125-139)
DEPUTY CHIEF
CONSTABLE IAN
READHEAD, CHIEF
INSPECTOR PAUL
BROOKS, DR
LYDIA POLLARD
AND TRACY
PHILLIPS
28 MARCH 2006
Chairman: Mr Readhead, Dr Pollard, Ms
Phillips, Mr Brooks, at least three of you have been with us before
the Act and it is interesting to have you back at this stage,
to see how it is going on. I will ask Ms Morgan to begin.
Q125 Julie Morgan: Good afternoon. Can
you tell us about your experience of the first year since the
Act has implemented? Could you give us figures about the number
of requests that you have received, how well you feel that you
have coped with the demands of the legislation, and what sort
of new information has been released?
Tracy Phillips: I am representing
the London boroughs, and I am from Islington Council myself. To
date, we have had 499; that is up to today. It has been an interesting
experience from the very beginning. It was challenging at the
beginning, but we are finding it more and more acceptable and
that we do want to publish more and more information. It is to
our benefit to do that and we are embracing this legislation.
It is interesting how it is being used by the public at large,
by business and the press. To date, we have had 30 requests from
our local press and 130 from national media and private organisations—that
is about one-third—and two-thirds which are by the public
at large, and quite a few of those were anonymously made, so we
did not actually know who they were. The act is applicant-blind
anyway. It is quite good. It is about public accountability. They
are asking about how our money is being spent. Another of the
requests is quite illuminating to ourselves, regarding requests
over contracts and how we have arranged to go into business with
this contractor, and what is the accountability for that. So it
has been a learning curve for us internally as well, because we
are more co-ordinated. The departments are not acting in silo;
we are a corporate body. We are welcoming the act and our compliance
has gone up month-on. So we are 85% compliant in this last month.
We have implemented an information governance board, which is
being chaired by our Director of Corporate Resources, which is
head of law. So it is being received as high-profile within the
council itself. That is truly representative of the London boroughs
anyway: that it is being embraced now. So it is good from our
point of view.
Q126 Julie Morgan: Is there any particular
information that has come out that you could tell us about?
Tracy Phillips: The information
requests tend to be topical, whatever the subject of the day is
within the borough itself. Primarily, the culture change has been
in the release of contracts and the publication of that, which
was never done in the past. That is the biggest one that I could
think of straightaway.
Dr Pollard: My organisation is
not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, so the information
I will give you really relates to all English local authorities.
We did a six-month survey and I will quickly try to do an update
on that. Our estimate is that, for the year, the English authorities
received something like 70,000 Freedom of Information requests.
It was variable from local authority to local authority. We produced
a report and in that report it breaks it down in terms of types
of authority. Typically, district councils tend to get fewer requests
than other types of councils, but there is really not much difference
between the other types of councils in terms of the numbers of
requests that they get. An overall picture for local authorities
is that there is some very positive news that has come out, in
that they have embraced the Freedom of Information Act; they are
genuinely trying to be more open and responsive to the general
public. It has raised information management and records management
much higher up the agenda for local authorities. They are valuing
their information and thinking much more carefully about how they
can make best use of it. That in turn has a very positive knock-on
effect for service improvement. There are some very good examples
of how local authorities are using the Freedom of Information
Act to improve their services. So, on the whole, it is very positive.
There is room for improvement always, but it is a very positive
impact.
Q127 Chairman: Is the police picture
different?
DCC Ian Readhead: The first year
has seen just about 21,000 applications being made to the service
overall. We are pleased that on 94% of the occasions we have managed
to respond within the time-frame set by the legislation and have
replied, in full or in part, on 65% of the cases. When we gave
evidence to you before, we indicated what our main concerns may
be. We were particularly concerned about disenfranchised members
of staff making considerable requests to us as employers. In fact
that has not proved to be the case: only in exceptional circumstances
where forces would appear to have had difficulties with their
staff do we see lots of internal applications. Overall, we have
tried to indicate in our evidence to you where the main requests
come to from our applicants, which are in relation to operational
policing matters, and also the way in which we deal with high-profile
cases such as Soham. We think that our main difficulties will
be around issues such as staff retention. It is very difficult
in our organisation to create a culture where you serve two clients.
One is the applicant and the other one is the organisation that
you work for. That has led to a disproportionate amount of staff
turnover and that has impacts for us around training as well.
So certainly our future strategy is to try to have an impact upon
that area of specific business. Overall, we are relatively pleased
with how the first year has gone; but our view is that there is
much challenge facing us over the next two years, as I think both
the public and the press become much more aware of how this legislation
can be used.
CI Paul Brooks: To answer your
question about what sort of releases we are doing, requests such
as all the Greenham Common files when the nuclear airbase was
there—that has all been released to the press via requests.
The investigating officer's report into Soham was released. All
the anti-apartheid movement back in the 1960s and 1970s was released—there
were obviously a lot of high-profile issues around that; and,
recently, war crimes. The majority of our chief officers' expenses
are now being routinely published on to websites. We have had
investigating officer reports for high-profile cases. A considerable
amount of ACPO policies, such as fox-hunting—how we are
going to deal with fox-hunting since the new legislation—that
has all been released, mostly in full. So we are making inroads
into quite high profile cases. As Mr Readhead said, 65% roughly
is what we are releasing, in full or in part.
Q128 Julie Morgan: What about the
problems you have encountered?
Dr Pollard: For local authorities,
they have raised the issue of the definition of vexatious or frivolous
requests. That has been an issue. I have a very good example which
I can leave with you. It is a very recent one. One authority received
something like 40 requests within a four-week period from a single
person, all for quite detailed information, all legitimate requests.
Nothing wrong with them as individual requests, but it was 40
requests for information within a four-week period that caused
the problem. I am sorry, no, actually it is 58 in total not 40.
Q129 Chairman: Fifty-eight?
Dr Pollard: Fifty-eight requests
from a single individual in a four-week period. Local authority
groups have had discussions with the Information Commissioner
and have fairly recently had some guidance about whether you could
define this as a frivolous or a vexatious request. Previously,
they had not been defining this as a vexatious or a frivolous
request; they had been trying to deal with these requests as they
came in. The other thing that they had not been doing, because
they were not aware that they could do this, was adding up the
time spent on these requests, because they are individual requests
and not necessarily about the same thing. So they did not feel
that they could add up the time spent. Each request has been dealt
with individually, and that has taken up a considerable amount
of time. The other issue for local authorities is requests from
businesses. There is a concern that businesses are using the Freedom
of Information to get information that will help them then sell
their services to local authorities, or help them to make commercial
gain. There is concern about whether that was what was intended
within the spirit of the Act. I have another example here, where
local authorities were asked to provide information in terms of
a web-based survey which went to the vast majority of English
authorities and they were asked to complete this online survey.
Q130 Chairman: You mean a survey
document was sent out to lots of local authorities, but as an
FOI request?
Dr Pollard: Yes, and they were
asking for information by means of a survey. Again, the Information
Commissioner has recently given guidance that, if those types
of requests come in, they do not need to treat them as FOI requests.
Q131 Chairman: I am sorry. Did you
say the Information Commissioner gave or could have given?
Dr Pollard: No, they have very
recently given guidance to say that those requests need not be
treated as FOI requests; but it is those kinds of issues that
have been worrying local authorities in terms of dealing with
the requests. There is obviously the resource issue and how we
fund all this, which is a problem for a number of authorities—but
we reported on that last time.
Tracy Phillips: Can I add to that
from a local authority perspective? We are very much on our own
in terms of consistency. We rely on networks and regional groups
to deal consistently with round-robin requests, to ensure that
the response that is given is one where we should all be providing
the same responses. The responses for an empty property request,
for example. If we are going to disclose, we should all disclose;
but we are reliant upon networks of expertise within the individual
local governments to contact each other and say, "We have
got this request. This is how we are going to respond". We
do not have a clearing house where we could go and seek advice;
we are reliant upon our own individual networks. That is a major
factor for local governments. There is no resource given. There
is certainly no hierarchy of support and guidance given to local
government bodies, and that is a major factor for local government.
Q132 Keith Vaz: How many of the requests
to the police relate to information that you simply do not have?
People writing in and saying, "Can I have my file?",
for example, and you do not have that file and you do not have
this information?
CI Paul Brooks: About 9% were
where we do not actually hold the information.
Q133 Keith Vaz: When you reply to
them and tell them, what is their reaction? Does anyone think
that you are not being—
CI Paul Brooks: There are a lot
of people, obviously, who think it is a conspiracy and that we
are actually not following that, or they do not believe us; but
we can only say that we do not hold the information—it is
our belief. We do get some of those, but it is not that prevalent.
Q134 Keith Vaz: Remind me—you
may have told us this on the last occasion when you came to the
other Committee—how long do you hold your files? Does it
vary according to a police authority, or is there a standard?
DCC Ian Readhead: It really depends
what you are talking about, sir. Legislation allows the Police
Service to keep criminal convictions now for life, or for 100
years. So you have that at one end of the spectrum. Most other
police files around information are kept up to about seven years;
but there are different grades and categories. So if you take
a murder investigation that has perhaps not resulted in any prosecution
or arrest, that may be kept longer as an active crime investigation
and, you will know, cold case reviews now are actually detecting
crimes that were committed 20 years ago, through the developments
of forensic science.
Q135 Keith Vaz: We have all seen
the television programmes about this. Do you feel that there should
be a standard practice throughout all the Police Service that
files should be kept for a certain period of time? It sounds as
if different things are happening in different parts of the country.
You have a police reorganisation going on, where it is quite possible
that, as we merge these various police forces—whether or
not people are in favour of it—files will go missing as
the filing cabinets are transferred.
DCC Ian Readhead: I think that
there are two questions there. The first is do you want consistency
in standards across the Police Service with regard to how we retain
information? The answer is yes. Post the review by Sir Michael
Bichard, there is now the management of police information which
is setting those standards for how long we retain information.
The second issue is about how you actually have governance processes
and retain information. Most forces are now either committing
much of their historical filing to computer records or they have
other central repositories as to where they hold information,
in accordance with best standards. I think that overall the service
is getting much better at this area of business.
Q136 Keith Vaz: To your knowledge,
have you produced any leaflets advising the public of what they
can and cannot find, in terms of applications under the FOI?
CI Paul Brooks: We have actually
done a public-facing manual, which is on the ACPO website and
which basically goes through issues of what you can approach for,
what you can get, and how to apply.
Q137 Keith Vaz: But not many people
would necessarily wake up in the morning and go on the ACPO website,
would they?
CI Paul Brooks: No.
Q138 Keith Vaz: Has anything been
produced that, for example, goes to local law centres or Citizens
Advice Bureaux?
DCC Ian Readhead: I am not aware
that we have done anything specifically in that, sir.
Q139 Keith Vaz: So you have basically
left it to the public to find out where they can get hold of this
information and they write in? If you issued leaflets, your workload
would presumably double, would it not?
CI Paul Brooks: It would increase
considerably. What we try to do, and we do this with all requests,
is that there will be items we have that we would not release
and where we would fight release, such as some parts of criminal
investigations, because we hold so much personal data. We try
and lower their expectations, but also when we get requests we
do phone and advise them, "You can have this", and we
try and work with them. FOI officers are very keen to do that.
But we have not actually put out leaflets saying, "You can
go for that"—mainly because, my personal belief is,
we do not have the staff, and the cost of that would have a very
big impact. I think that in our evidence we have stated the first
year has cost around £7 million for the service, and that
is just answering requests, but it does not include the time to
publicise things, put things on publication schemes—which
is a problem to the service.
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