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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