Evidence submitted by World Development
Movement
INTRODUCTION TO
WDM
1. The World Development Movement (WDM)
campaigns to tackle the root causes of poverty. With our partners
around the world, we win positive change for the world's poorest
people. We believe that charity is not enough. We lobby governments
and companies to change policies that keep people poor. WDM is
a democratic membership organisation of individuals and local
groups.
2. One of WDM's roles is to scrutinise the
effects of UK government policy and actions on communities in
developing countries. One vital aspect of this work is accessing
information on what policies and actions the UK government is
pursuing. WDM thanks the Constitutional Affairs Committee for
initiating this inquiry on freedom of information and for the
opportunity to submit written evidence.
3. An important public interest role played
by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) is scrutinising the activities
of government. The scrutinising of many government activities
requires expertise of NGOs working on particular issues. If NGOs
are restricted in their access to information, it is unreasonable
to expect thousands of individuals to undertake such scrutiny
instead. Below we set out how proposed government changes to the
use of the Freedom of Information Act would affect WDM.
COSTS OF
FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION REQUESTS
MADE BY
THE SAME
INDIVIDUAL OR
ORGANISATION TO
ONE AUTHORITY
TO BE
AGGREGATED OVER
THREE MONTHS,
AND REFUSED
IF OVER
THE £600/£450 LIMIT
4. WDM submits freedom of information requests
to many different government departments. However, one of the
main departments we seek to scrutinise is the Department for International
Development (DfID).
5. Over the past two years, WDM has been
campaigning against the use of DfID aid money to push water privatisation
in developing countries, and for greater support to reform public
sector water systems. We have also been campaigning for the UK
to end the use of economic policy conditions in return for aid,
such as requiring a country to privatise a particular company
in return for the aid that DfID gives. In March 2005, the UK government
announced it would no longer attach economic conditions to the
aid it gives. Since then, WDM has sought to monitor how DfID has
implemented that policy in practice.
6. Since the Freedom of Information Act
came into force in January 2005, WDM has submitted 28 Freedom
of Information requests to the Department for International Development.
This averages three requests every three month period. Most of
these requests have taken at least 20 working days to respond
to, and many have been granted extensions to apply a public interest
test. If the government change was made as proposed, the number
of requests we could make would be significantly reduced.
7. WDM cannot claim that every single one
of these requests has produced information we have publicly used.
However, this is a natural inevitability of requesting information.
We do not know what information we are getting until it is disclosed
to us. However, if the number of requests we could make every
three months were limited, we would have to try and make uninformed
judgements on the most important requests to make. Of course,
we cannot know which requests are most important until we are
granted access to the information we are looking for. Below we
list two examples of the importance of information which WDM has
gained.
Example: DFID water work in Guyana
8. In February 2007, WDM was granted access
to four audit reports by the consultancy company Halcrow, paid
for by DFID, into the performance of Severn Trent Water International
in a water privatisation management contract in Guyana. The audit
reports show that Severn Trent Water International had failed
to meet five of seven objectives set in the contract. By 2005,
Severn Trent was meant to have expanded coverage to the Amerindian
community in the Hinterland to 52.1% , but it was only 4.3%. Continuity
of service should have been 16.75 hours a day, but stood at only
3.09 hours.[34]
9. The privatisation in Guyana was heavily
funded by the UK's Department for International Development. Overall
DfID's support to the Guyana water sector for 2002-08 is planned
to be £13 million. This included £1,857,662 paid to
Severn Trent for their management contract fee up until February
2006, with a further provision of £1 million for 2006 to
2008.[35]
In March 2006, although DfID already knew that Severn Trent were
severely missing most of their targets, DfID defended the project
in Guyana, saying the project is "improving the effectiveness
of GWI [Guyana Water Incorporated] management and the way
GWI is regulated."[36]
10. DfID also funded consultancy work for
the Guyana privatisation, including £879,068 paid to KPMG
in 1999 which recommended restructuring the water sector and placing
it under private management.[37]
11. It is a matter of public interest how
aid money from UK taxpayers is used. A public assessment in this
case can only be made because WDM has managed to get information
into the public domain through the Freedom of Information Act.
It is unlikely such work will be done in the future if the proposed
changes to Freedom of Information are made.
Example: DFID research on water provision
12. In May 2005, through the Freedom of
Information Act, WDM was granted access to a research paper paid
for with £358,582 of DfID money on "Meeting the Water
and Sanitation Millennium Development Goal". DfID had not
otherwise sought to publish this information, and it was only
made available on the DfID Freedom of Information Disclosures
webpage following WDM's request. At the moment, many pieces of
research for DfID are only made available through the use of Freedom
of Information requests. Spreading the cost limit across three
months would mean WDM would effectively no longer be able to request
the outcomes of such research. Again, it is clearly a matter of
public interest that research paid for by UK taxpayers should
be able to be evaluated and used publicly.
13. The research for DfID stated that countries
were off-track in meeting the water and sanitation Millennium
Development Goals where "Water sector activities tend to
be driven by external agents, eg, donors and IFIs [International
Financial Institutions—the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank]." Unfortunately, in 2006, DfID awarded a contract
to PricewaterhouseCoopers Africa to work on the privatisation
of several companies in Sierra Leone, including Guma Valley Water
Company—the water utility for the capital Freetown. The
planned water privatisation is the result of conditions set by
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.[38]
DfID's decision to fund this work runs counter to the research
it has commissioned, and there is a clear public interest in this
case. But under Freedom of Information Act changes, it is unlikely
we would know the results of such research.
THE COSTS
OF THE
TIME SPENT
READING THE
INFORMATION, CONSULTING
OTHER BODIES
AND CONSIDERING
WHETHER TO
RELEASE IT
TO BE
INCLUDED IN
THE COST
LIMIT
14. The proposal to allow the deliberation
on whether exemptions apply to be included in the cost limit would
also seriously hinder WDM's ability to access information from
government. Of the 28 requests WDM has made to DFID:
— 10 have been granted an extension
to judge on whether an exemption is overridden by the public interest
test;
— 5 have been refused within 20 working
days; and
— 13 have been granted within 20 working
days.
15. Given the high proportion of WDM requests
which are evaluated against the public interest test, we believe
it is likely that this will push many requests over the cost limit
which would previously have been granted. The Guyana water request
above is an example where a public interest test had been used
in the course of gaining access to the material.
16. Furthermore, such a change could breed
suspicion that authorities could deal with politically difficult
requests by choosing to read, consult and consider to a level
where the cost limit applies, automatically blocking publication
of the requested information. There is a danger that this change
creates the perception of a flexible loophole for authorities
where freedom of information requests can be blocked on cost grounds,
just because the authority regards publication of the material
as contentious.
Example: Request for the Secretary of State's
public engagements
17. In March 2005, WDM requested a list
of the International Development Secretary of State's public engagements
between March 2005 and April 2006. The planned response date was
extended six times. In the end, WDM was given the information
in September 2005, over five months after initially requesting
it. The majority of the Secretary of State's public engagements
had already taken place by the time we received the information.
We have never understood why responding to the request took so
long, and how the public interest test in this case was complicated
enough to take five months to adjudicate. However, it is clear
that under the government's proposed changes, such requests would
be refused on cost grounds.
FURTHER COMMENTS
18. The Government proposals on changes
to freedom of information appear to be driven by cost concerns.
The easiest way for governmental authorities to save money would
be to make information available as a matter-of-course. Unfortunately,
many governmental authorities still seem wedded to a culture of
secrecy. WDM believes that there should be a presumption for authorities
to automatically publish much of the information we request. For
instance, there should be a presumption that the outcomes of DFID
research or the details of aid projects should be published. In
comparison with DFID, the World Bank provides far more information
on the projects it is funding and the research it produces.
19. For now, Freedom of Information requests
are a vital tool to force authorities to be more open. The limits
proposed on their use will be a damaging blow to the process of
making government more transparent within the UK.
20. WDM already believes that DfID have
a culture of seeking to deny access to information. Below we list
one example. The proposed changes to the Act will give DfID even
more room not to respond to requests which are politically sensitive.
Example: Parliamentary scrutiny of DFID aid conditions
21. Parliamentarians in Malawi, Indonesia
and Ghana, working with WDM tried testing a 2005 UK government
conditionality policy commitment that states; "The UK will
make our own aid conditions more transparent by publishing them
on DFID's [Department for International Development's] website."[39]
22. Additionally, the policy states that
the UK "aims to increase the transparency around the process
of decision making on conditions, the conditions themselves, and
the process for deciding to reduce or interrupt aid". The
paper also says, "It is critical there is a full and open
national debate in country—including in parliaments and
national assemblies—on the relative impacts of different
policy options before the government takes final decisions on
the way ahead."
23. Clearly, for meaningful involvement
in the development, scrutiny and monitoring of aid conditions
to occur, national parliaments in both recipient (and donor) countries
need timely access to details of what conditions have been set
and proposed. Because details of all the relevant UK aid conditions
are not available on the DfID website, in June 2006 WDM and MPs
in the global South jointly submitted a request, under the Freedom
of Information Act, for all existing and planned conditions associated
with UK aid, and joint UK and World Bank support to each country.
The MPs also requested information on the actions taken by the
UK government if conditions associated with its aid were not met.
24. While the exact responses to these requests
varied, they all failed to provide a reasonable overview of UK
or joint UK/World Bank conditions, and so effectively denied the
parliaments concerned the opportunity to put them under meaningful
parliamentary scrutiny.
25. The UK Government stated that:
— In general, only the minority of
aid conditions that had been set after January 2006 were available.
— Collating information on what other
conditions had been set for each country would cost more than
£600, so DfID was not obliged to do so.
— Even if the information requested
was collected, it might come under exemptions to the Freedom of
Information Ace.
— DfID does not hold information relating
to conditions which may have been set by other UK Government Departments.
26. DfID's decision to refuse to provide
the MPs with an overview of its activities in their countries
indicates a lack of commitment to delivering its policy on transparency
and parliamentary scrutiny. WDM and the relevant MPs are now exploring
other ways to press DfID to provide the requested information.
Tim Jones
March 2007
34 Halcrow. (2006). Department for International Development:
Determination of Year 3 Performance Against the Targets in the
GWI Management Contract. DFID, London. July 2006. Back
35
DfID. (2006). DfID Freedom of Information Act reply F2006/031
to WDM. DfID, London. 30/03/06. Back
36
DfID. (2006). DfID Freedom of Information Act reply F2006/031
to WDM. DfID, London. 30/03/06. Back
37
DfID. (2004). Procurement contracts 1997-2004. Obtained by WDM
from DfID through the Code of Practice on Access to Government
Information. Received 19/10/04. Back
38
WDM. (2005). Media briefing: UK support for water privatisation
PR in Sierra Leone. WDM. London. August 2005. Back
39
DfID, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and HM Treasury. (2005).
Partnerships for poverty reduction: Rethinking conditionality.
(London : UK Department for International Development). March
2005. Back
| 
