Law lecture notes Week 8

Freedom Of Information Act


130,000 bodies covered by the act
100,000 requests a year - cost £34m
Journalists requests only accounts for 12%

Politicians claim the FOI has a "chilling effect" on government as they don't feel safe or free to discuss issues that could become  damaging to them if they found their way into a document.

Tony Blair, who brought in the act - "FOI was not a good idea... makes it hard for government to have confidential conversations."

Basic principle of the FOI act;

"Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled to have that information communicated to him."

An FOI request must be in writing, email included and it is free.

If it costs more than £600 (£450 for smaller authorities) or if the information is EXEMPT. But you do not have to accept this decision.

Exemptions:
Absolute (eg security services, court records)
Qualified (eg ministerial communications, commercial confidentiality)
Where the information is covered by a qualified exemption, you should still be given it if the balance of the 'pubic interest' favours disclosure.

Public interest - within the publics interest, not just interesting to the public.

The public authority has to respond to an FOI request within 20 days unless there is a public interest consideration then they can take a further 40 days.

What if they say no?
Internal review
Information Commisioner
Information Tribunal
High Court