Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs Written Evidence


Evidence submitted by the Department for Constitutional Affairs

  Thank you for your letter of 15 February 2007 concerning the proposed amendments to the Freedom of Information fee regulations.

  I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the proposals with the Committee and share our analysis of the responses to the consultation prior to the laying of any Regulations. The consultation on the proposals closes on 8 March after which we will carefully analyse and consider the consultation responses, with the intention of publishing our response to the consultation within three months of this date in line with the Cabinet Office Code of Practice on Consultations.

  As requested I enclose the following information which I hope the Committee will find useful in informing considerations of the proposals.[40] You will be pleased to note that the majority of this information is already in the public domain.

    (i)  Analysis from the Frontier Economics report to support conclusion that small minority requests and requestors account for a disproportionate amount of the resources required to process FOI requests. Relevant sections in the Frontier Economics report have been flagged.

    (ii)  Statistics to support analysis that these primarily came from serial requestors (particularly whether mainly from journalists). The relevant sections in the Frontier report have been flagged.

    (iii)  A summary of data collected and a list of departments who participated in the costings exercise.

    (iv)  The number of requests analysed for each department that took part.

    (v)  The pro-forma for the costings exercise detailing the data fields included in the analysis.

  You also asked for details of the information requested for those cases which had a disproportionate impact on resources. As emphasised in my previous letter, the proposals are not aimed at targeting specific types of requests. Our concern is only with requests that impose disproportionate burdens, on public authorities in terms of the time taken to process those requests, regardless of what information has been requested. The Frontier Economics analysis was blind on the nature of the request for this very purpose, focusing on the impact of FOI on resources and how this can be managed effectively.

  As such when collecting the data from departments we were only prescriptive about the quantitative data required to assess the impact on resources of processing FOI requests. Information about the details of the request was not mandatory. Whilst some departments did choose to record information it was varied in quality and detail and was not used as part of the analysis.

  I would be pleased to provide the Committee with a copy of all the consultation responses once the consultation period has ended and will keep the Committee informed of our progress to enable you to schedule an evidence session at an appropriate time.

The Baroness Ashton of Upholland

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State

February 2007







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