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What happens when an FOI is selected for special treatment: intel gathering and obfuscation
Journalists often get the feeling that their FOI is being treated differently. It may be something which should be straightforward that suddenly takes months. It might be getting a phone call from a press officer despite having not approached the department for comment yet, or finding material being withheld on consistently flimsy grounds despite an obvious public interest. A key principle of FOI requests is that they should be handled in an “applicant blind manner”. A request from Sue Smith of Tunbridge Wells about her bin collection times should be treated in the same manner as one from a seasoned…
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Labour’s post-it note solution to FOI
The 20-year anniversary of the coming into force of the freedom of information act is a momentous occasion. For all the very real issues with the legislation, the delays, the obfuscation and the issues with enforcement, FOIA has been a true leveller in the public right to information. No longer do people need to have connections as an insider, expert, or journalist, to obtain important information about how government affects their lives. It has also set a basic standard for government transparency, which has made it harder for government to obfuscate indefinitely. The government can delay, but if information is…
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Trying to open the black box: how the government has resisted transparency about the civil service ethics watchdog
The average member of the public probably hasn’t heard of the Propriety and Ethics Team (PET). The unit, recently renamed the propriety and constitution team, sits at the heart of government in the Cabinet Office and performs a key public service role It is responsible for advising on the handling of any potential conflicts of interest for ministers, as well as vetting those the prime minister proposes for ministerial office. It also handles ethical concerns across central government, advises on public appointments, and oversees the honours system. Given its key responsibilities one might think a significant amount of information would…
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What happens when the ICO declines to regulate?
When the ICO declines to adequately enforce its own rulings, it leaves requesters in a regulatory no-man’s land, undermining their rights to access information. Unlike in other countries, where requesters can pursue legal remedies directly, in the UK, requestors are almost entirely reliant on the ICO to uphold their information rights. On the one hand, this makes enforcing one’s information rights in the UK accessible for all. You don’t have to spend thousands of pounds on lawyers to enforce your rights, as you would have to do in the US and other jurisdictions. That in practice limits the ability to…
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A new way of delaying transparency
Turn your minds back to the late Sunak era, and you might remember a story about his declarations of interests. He was given a ticking off by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, after he had not declared his wife’s shareholding in a childcare company which would benefit from a government policy to pay incentives to childminders entering the sector. This breach was ruled inadvertent by the commissioner. The issue came in part because not everything that is disclosed on the ministers list of interests is disclosed on the MPs register of interests. Under current rules, ministers must declare anything that…
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A national security risk? Blair’s FOI debates
For my first blog, we’re digging into the National Archives. Every year, the National Archives released a cache of Cabinet Office papers under the 20-year rule. These disclosures often provide rather entertaining anecdotes from previous governments, such as Alastair Campbell’s brave idea to host a Rangers Celtic Derby in Belfast during the peace process. I attempted to pop down to the archive at Kew last year, after a little bird told me included in the documents there was some material on the implementation of the freedom of information act. As an FOIA nerd of my calibre, I couldn’t resist. Sadly,…
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Welcome to Relight My FOIA
My name is George Greenwood, and I am an investigative reporter at The Times. I specialise in using transparency law to fight for access to the kinds of records that can hold government to account. You can read my reporting on The Times website here. This blog will include occasional thoughts from me on what is going right and wrong in British information law. Freedom of information is a crucial democratic right. It is a key tool for journalists in doing their jobs, for campaigners to shed better light on issues close to their hearts, and for ordinary people to…
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