The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chair:
†Albert
Owen
†
Beresford,
Sir Paul (Mole Valley)
(Con)
†
Blackman,
Bob (Harrow East)
(Con)
†
Blackwood,
Nicola (Oxford West and Abingdon)
(Con)
†
Blears,
Hazel (Salford and Eccles)
(Lab)
†
Brake,
Tom (Carshalton and Wallington)
(LD)
†
Coffey,
Ann (Stockport)
(Lab)
†
Djanogly,
Mr Jonathan (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Justice)
†
Ellis,
Michael (Northampton North)
(Con)
†
Flello,
Robert (Stoke-on-Trent South)
(Lab)
†
Freeman,
George (Mid Norfolk)
(Con)
†
Huppert,
Dr Julian (Cambridge)
(LD)
Kaufman,
Sir Gerald (Manchester, Gorton)
(Lab)
†
Macleod,
Mary (Brentford and Isleworth)
(Con)
†
McDonnell,
John (Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
McCrea,
Dr William (South Antrim)
(DUP)
†
Reynolds,
Jonathan (Stalybridge and Hyde)
(Lab/Co-op)
†
Vaz,
Valerie (Walsall South)
(Lab)
†
Wright,
Jeremy (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Eliot Wilson,
Committee Clerk
† attended
the Committee
Third
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Tuesday 9
November
2010
[Albert
Owen
in the
Chair]
Draft
Freedom of Information (Time for Compliance with Request)
Regulations
2010
4.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan
Djanogly):
I beg to
move,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Freedom of Information (Time for
Compliance with Request) Regulations
2010.
It
is good to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. The
purpose of the regulations is to allow academies more time to respond
to freedom of information requests to take account of school
closures—for example, during school holidays. The Freedom of
Information Act gives any person the legal right to request access to
recorded information held by a public authority. The Act applies to
more than 100,000 public authorities, and last year central
Government-monitored bodies received more than 40,000 requests. Under
the Act, freedom of information requests must be responded to
“promptly” and normally within 20 working days. It is
right that people making requests should receive a timely
response.
However,
there are limited occasions on which the deadline is impractical. That
is why regulations were previously made in 2004 and 2009 to provide all
maintained schools in England and Wales and schools and pupil referral
units in Northern Ireland with an extension to the usual 20 working day
time limit in dealing with FOI requests in certain
circumstances.
The
Academies Act 2010 extended the Freedom of Information Act to
proprietors of academies. Like other schools, academies can face
difficulties in answering requests received during holidays and other
times when they are closed and unstaffed. That is a particular problem
during the summer holidays, which can be about six weeks long. Without
the extension, academies might unavoidably miss the deadlines provided
for under the Act. These regulations will ensure that proprietors of
academies have the same reasonable allowance in respect of the time
limit for responding to requests as all other schools in England, Wales
and Northern Ireland subject to the FOI
Act.
However,
the regulations do not give academies licence to drag their feet over
FOI responses. Section 10 of the Act still requires public authorities
to deal with FOI requests “promptly”. If it is possible
for an academy to respond to a request earlier, the response cannot be
delayed until the end of the extended time limit. If the regulations
are made, proprietors of academies will not have to count any day that
is not a school day, such as during school holidays, towards the period
of 20 working days within which requests have to be answered. However,
under the regulations, requests must be answered
within a maximum of 60 working days, including any period of
closure.
The
regulations will put academies on a comparable footing to other schools
in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They will ensure that academies
are not disadvantaged in fulfilling their FOI obligations as a result
of factors beyond their control. I therefore commend the regulations to
the Committee and hope that hon. Members agree with me that this
necessary and common-sense measure should
proceed.
4.33
pm
Robert
Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab):
I welcome you to the
Chair, Mr Owen; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I
thank the Minister for his explanation of the regulations. The
Opposition welcome the regulations and will not oppose them, as I am
sure the Committee will be delighted to hear. As has been mentioned,
the previous Labour Government introduced similar regulations in 2004
and 2009, extending freedom of information compliance times for
governing bodies of grant-maintained nursery schools, schools
maintained by the Secretary of State for Defence, managers of
controlled schools, voluntary schools, grant-maintained integrated
schools and pupil referral units. We see the latest regulations as
being in the same
vein.
However,
I have a couple of questions for the Minister. I shall keep them brief
so that we do not detain the Committee longer than necessary. First, so
we may understand the impact of the regulations, I should be grateful
if the Minister would advise the Committee on how many of the
organisations included in the 2004 and 2009 regulations required the
additional time to comply with freedom of information requests. More
specifically, how many times in the last year were academies, as we
know them currently, unable to comply with the freedom of information
compliance target of 20 days? Given that the regulations will apply to
the proprietor of an academy, what evidence does the Minister have that
proprietors—I stress the word
“proprietors”—of academies, unlike the academy
itself, adhere to a timetable other than the school timetable? For
example, if a proprietor of an academy is an existing business or
philanthropic organisation that does not have a timetable similar to a
school timetable, what evidence is there that it would have a problem
in complying with FOI
requests?
That
is the extent of the questions that I have for the Minister, and I am
grateful to him for his
explanation.
4.35
pm
Tom
Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD):
The Committee will
be pleased to hear that I also do not intend to delay proceedings this
afternoon, although I wish to put on record the fact that I think that
this is a perfectly reasonable request. However, the Minister will be
aware that the information commissioner has recently commented rather
critically on the failure of various Departments and other bodies to
respond within an appropriate timescale. I hope that the Minister will
use this opportunity to put on record his expectation that academies
will respond within this agreed extended period of
time.
I
wonder also whether the Minister is aware that the coalition programme
talks about extending the scope of FOI. He may be aware that on Friday
this week we have the Second Reading of the Freedom of Information
(Amendment) Bill, which I am promoting. It calls on,
for instance, Network Rail and other companies doing public sector work
to be brought into the scope of FOI. The Minister may not want to
comment on that now, but I flag it up as an issue to which I hope we
can return at some time in the near
future.
4.37
pm
Mr
Djanogly:
I shall go through the points that were made. In
relation to the information collected on the time periods taken by
academies to answer FOI requests, I am afraid that academies have only
been included in the FOI system since the Academies Act 2010, which is
too short a time to enable me to comment on their timeliness.
On the
extended deadline and how many schools have used it, we do not know,
because we do not collect that information centrally. It is done school
by school, so it would have to be collected on a more localised basis.
I can tell the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South that the
information commissioner has told us
that to date he has never highlighted to the Ministry of Justice any
particular problem with schools. That is not to say that there are no
such problems, but the information will be available locally.
As for
proprietors, I suppose that the answer depends on whether they are
public bodies. If they are public bodies—although I am not sure
that any proprietors of academies are public bodies—the FOI
would
apply.
In
answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, I
take his point and use this opportunity to say to all
schools—because the 60-day period applies to them—that
they should not view the 60-day period as a maximum rather than a
minimum. They should respond to FOI requests as soon as they can, and
not take the 60 days as the maximum period.
Question
put and agreed
to.
4.39
pm
Committee
rose.