Public sector fear over Freedom of Information IT costs

Over two-thirds of public sector IT managers believe the cost of updating or installing new systems is a significant barrier to complying with the Freedom of Information Act.

Local authorities have until January 2005 to comply with the Act, which aims to give people greater access to public information and create a more open approach to government.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows citizens to request to know if certain information is held by public authorities and to have access to that data. Authorities also have to undertake schemes for the proactive publication of information.

But a survey commissioned by BEA, Captiva, Documentum, Fujitsu Consulting and Sun Microsystems and carried out by IDL Strategic Services reveals that major process change, cost and confusion about the Act are all barriers to compliance for public authorities.

Two-thirds of respondents cited cost as the main barrier, while 82 per cent said the re-engineering of business processes is an obstacle to compliance and 42 per cent said they are confused about policy or regulations regarding the sharing of information.

More worryingly only 15 per cent have any compliance in place now, with 29 per cent aiming for the end of 2003 and 18 per cent taking it to the wire to the end of 2004.

Chris Graham, government sales director at Fujitsu Consulting, told silicon.com that the compliance challenge is a combination of changing business processes and the correct storing and structuring of data and information for quick retrieval if it is subject to an access request under the Act.

"The Act demands that public sector agencies open up and make simple access to information. But they hold a vast amount of data and if they don't structure it correctly then they won't be compliant," he said.

David Gingell, VP of marketing for Documentum in Europe, said in a statement that the act has the potential to become a huge headache for the public sector.

"However, while they recognise the problem, they still have to overcome budgetary restrictions, a lack of internal skills and resistance to change in order to come close to meeting the deadline," he said.

The study was conducted among a mixture of business and IT staff at public sector agencies and large government departments in the UK.

Separate research by the Stationery Office in June found that one in three government departments are not aware of the deadline for the Act, with three-quarters yet to set a budget for implementing measures for compliance.