Examination of Witnesses (Questions 168-179)
BARONESS ASHTON
OF UPHOLLAND
18 APRIL 2006
Q168 Chairman: Baroness Ashton, welcome
back. We are glad to see you again as one of our most regular
ministerial witnesses. I do not think we have got any interests
to declare today that are relevant, not so far as I know. In that
case, let us give you the chance to open by asking you what has
gone well and what has not in terms of FOI implementation in this
first year and what areas do you think need to be improved on?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I think what has gone well is we have moved into a culture of
openness right across many of the organisations, public sector
organisations, who have been involved in Freedom of Information.
I think that came through in some of the evidence which has been
presented to the Committee of how people felt that there has been
a good response in the main from central, local government and
other organisations doing their best to provide information. I
think what has been a great success is that we have enabled so
much information to come into the public domain and hopefully
responded well. Where we have got more to do is in supporting
the Information Commissioner in his work, in looking to make sure
that we have got consistency across government departments and
I think addressing something I know the Committee is particularly
keen and interested in, looking at the future of records' management
and ensuring that we do it effectively and properly.
Q169 Chairman: Do you expect to see much
looking different by the end of 2006?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I hope we will see the backlog disappear from the Information
Commissioner's workload. I know he has plans and has discussed
how to achieve that with you. I think the clearing house is developing
its work very effectively, so we will see that greater consistency
which I would like to see across government. Also, we will begin
to think about the next phase and stage of Freedom of Information
and other organisations we might wish to encompass within the
Act. Hopefully, all of that together will begin to see the settling
down, if I can put it like that, of FOI as part and parcel of
how we do business and get better government.
Q170 Chairman: We will explore some
of these things in more detail, but perhaps you can also tell
us about the user group which you are supposed to be setting up.
When are you going to publish some information about it? How will
its members be chosen? Will there be some way in which legitimate
interest and stakeholders can get somebody on to that group without
having to rely on the patronage, if I can call it that, of the
Department?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
With the user group we are trying to bring together people who
have a genuine interest. We are trying to involve politicians
from the different political parties in both Houses of Parliament,
journalists, others, organisations who have an interest and who
are participating, if I can put it that way, in FOI. It is a group
I am putting together. If there are people who are interested
and who read our transcripts and want to be part of that, I would
be delighted to hear from them. It is not in any way meant to
be secretive or in any way meant to be other than a helpful and
useful opportunity to think about the future development of FOI
and give those involved a chance to talk through me to the Department
about how well it is going and where the challenges might lie.
Q171 Chairman: When do think its
members will be nominated and chosen?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We have written to a number of people to invite them. As soon
as we have got the full list completed I will put that in the
public domain and it will be on the website. We hope to have the
first meeting within the next two to three weeks.
Q172 Chairman: The next two to three
weeks?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Yes.
Q173 Chairman: Is that a final list
or, if you identify gaps in the range of interests and knowledge
covered, is it a list to which you can add some more?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We certainly can. It is a group that I have put together thinking
about the different areas in which we might wish to involve people,
but it is not by any means set in stone. Indeed, one of its first
challenges will be to say, "Do we have the right mix of people,
are there people we should have involved?". Equally, there
may be people who we need to bring in for particular discussions
which I would be happy to do. It is a very flexible and open approach
which I hope will be very valuable, and will be open in the spirit
of Freedom of Information.
Q174 Julie Morgan: I want to ask
about delays in the decision-making process because we have had
a number of witnesses who have given evidence to us about the
delays they have experienced. We know that a number of organisations
have got a very high compliance rate with the 20-day response
limit, but central government response is less than some of those
organisations, such as the BBC and ACPO. What steps are you taking
to improve compliance within your Department and across other
government departments?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
Mrs Morgan, my ambition is that we will begin to see greater compliance
as we deal with some of the more difficult issues which come forward.
In one sense, it does not surprise me that in central government
things can be delayed. Some of the questions and issues that are
being addressed require a more complicated and in-depth look.
That is not an excuse, I think it is just a reality because we
need to think very carefully about the concerns that might be
raised by individual departments about the release of information.
It can be more technically difficult and it can be more politically
difficult in terms of the making of policy. At one level I am
not surprised. What we have sought to do with the clearing house
is offer the best guidance we can to departments to make sure
that they are operating with, again, that consistent approach
and where we have got requests coming in across Government to
give a consistent view of how they might tackle and deal with
particular concerns which people have raised. I am by no means
complacent about it but not desperately surprised. The Information
Commissioner raised with the Committee his own concerns about
delays, and I did write to him immediately afterwards to ask for
examples of that and he sent me some. Interestingly, the analysis
we have been doing on this over the last few days demonstrates
that the delays are not only within departments but, indeed, the
Information Commissioner himself sometimes takes a while to deal
with things. That is part and parcel of the first year of operation.
We need to get better at it and we hope we will be able to address
that.
Q175 Julie Morgan: You think a lot
of the delays are to do with the fact that it is the first year
of operation and it will improve as we all get a bit more used
to it?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
I am quite sure that a percentage of it is related to that because
you are dealing with quite complicated questions for the very
first time. We will get better and faster because people get more
used to dealing with that, and that is my ambition. There is nothing
that I have seen which is a systemic problem about delay, it is
that there are some difficulties in trying to work out quite what
ought to be done.
Q176 Julie Morgan: The Code of Practice
issued under section 45 of the Act allows public authorities to
take extra time to consider the public interest before responding
to applicants' requests for information. Can you give us some
examples of where departments have taken this extra time and then
have reached a decision to disclose information in the public
interest?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
It is a difficult thing to give individual examples because as
a minister trying to take an overview I try and steer very clear
of getting too involved in individual examples. I am very happy
to write to you with some examples which my officials can supply.
Certainly, the experience has been that where departments are
taking extra time we have been quite careful to ensure that they
do consider it properly and that they are looking in the best
possible way to disclose as much as they possibly can. Again,
the evidence seems to be that is the case. There are examples
where information is not disclosed for good reason, but the purpose
of the extra time is to enable those kinds of decisions to be
looked at very carefully in order to make sure we get as much
into the public domain as we possibly can. I am very happy to
supply examples to you.
Q177 Julie Morgan: We have been told
of cases where authorities have used the public interest extension
several times before finally replying to an applicants' request
for information and there is no guidance to authorities on what
is a reasonable extension. Do you think it should be made clearer
to authorities about what is an acceptable length of time to consider
the public interest? Do you think the Code should be revised to
give some guidance on that?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
We have already indicated that we plan to look at the Code of
Practice and make sure that it is right. I think we are due to
look at it again some time towards the end of this year, the beginning
of next. One of the issues—and you are absolutely right—we
need to look at is whether there is better guidance that we can
give authorities. It is always quite difficult at the beginning
because we want to give people the chance to look and take the
time to do it properly and, at that point, we do not have an average
view of what that might look like. Now that we have got greater
experience and, of course, the Information Commissioner too, about
what is reasonable, I think we will be able to review that and
look again at whether we can give some better guidance on what
we would consider to be a reasonable length of time.
Q178 Julie Morgan: We were also told
by a number of witnesses that internal reviews have been subject
to delays and extensions, in some cases where authorities have
taken months to complete internal reviews. The Code of Practice
merely states that the time taken should be reasonable, and the
Information Commissioner told us that he thought two months was
sufficient. Do you think you should revise the Code to make it
clearer to authorities what is an acceptable time to carry out
an internal review?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
One of the things we want to do is to have more detailed discussion
with the Information Commissioner about whether two months is
right or whether there is a flexibility in his thinking, which
suggests that depending on the kind of issue or concerns we might
want internal reviews to be able to take longer or shorter. In
other words, I am more reluctant to say you have to put an absolute
time limit on things but I think, again, when we look at how the
guidance is working, it is an opportunity to give people a greater
sense of what we would consider a reasonable length of time to
be. Clearly some of your witnesses felt that they had far too
long a period of time before they were getting answers, and I
can understand from their perspective that would feel like that.
It is difficult, again, on individual cases because often there
are good reasons why it can take a length of time. Hopefully,
again, that will speed up because we get more used to how we do
this and if we have another think about the guidance we may be
able to give people a stronger indication of what is acceptable.
I am very keen to take the evidence from the Committee that I
have seen and pick up some of these issues as we look to the guidance
being reviewed later on.
Q179 Julie Morgan: Your questions
on delays, generally you do not really have any major concerns
about any of the delays that are happening? You feel that these
can be addressed in a reasonable way?
Baroness Ashton of Upholland:
There is nothing I have seen at the moment which would suggest
to me that we have got a systemic problem that we need to deal
with. I think there are individual areas where performance could
be improved. There are certainly occasions where because we have
now done this for the first time in some areas it will speed up
in any event. I think there is an opportunity to think about whether
the guidance could be clearer and give people a sense of a little
bit more urgency perhaps in some cases without being too prescriptive.
We can do all that as we look forward to the second year and move
further in to the second year of operation and develop the strategies
that go alongside that. There is nothing I have seen that makes
me think we have a genuine systemic problem, rather we have got
people trying to grapple with what is still very new both in terms
of concept and operation.
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