MPs criticise Freedom of Information implementation

Many government agencies and public sector bodies are unprepared to deal with data requests under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which comes into force on 1 January 2005, according to MPs.

The report by the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee on FOI implementation found a lack of central guidance and a lack of consistency around the different public bodies.

The FOI Act provides the public with a general right of access to information held by 100,000 public authorities, who have a 20 day deadline to provide the information or explain why it is being withheld.

The Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) is responsible for making sure government bodies are prepared but its role has been heavily criticised in the committee's report, which assessed the readiness of the police, health and local government sectors.

The report said: "The further one goes away from Whitehall departments, the more 'patchy' is the state of preparedness. The DCA's failure to provide early guidance on technical matters and gaps in its leadership on FOI have risked creating the impression that FOI implementation is another chore to be undertaken, rather than a catalyst for a cultural shift to greater openness."

While the police were praised for their preparations for the January deadline, the report raised concerns about implementation in the health and local government sectors. The report also calls the decision to opt for a "big-bang" approach to implementation as "questionable".

One issue raised about local government and the FOI Act was the cost of technology to comply with the legislation. Dr Lydia Pollard, e-government adviser at local government development body IDeA, said electronic records management systems are essential for FOI compliance but cost at least £250,000

"If you are a small district authority then that is an enormous sum of money and so before you would invest anything like that you would need to be sure you were getting the right number of enquiries to justify implementing such a system," she said in the report.

The lack of consistency across the health service was also criticised. "There is little evidence that the DCA has been sufficiently active in providing the necessary leadership to ensure that many of the organisational and technical problems have been addressed in time in this sector.

The full report can be found here.