By Jo Best, 20 October 2004 13:30
NEWS Set to come into force on 1 January 2005, the Freedom of Information Act - which gives Joe Public new powers to extract information from government bodies - will now make less of a dent of the average person's pocket.
In draft legislation, the Freedom of Information Act had stipulated that anyone making a request from a public sector body would have to pay 10 per cent of the cost of finding the answer as well as expenses including printing documents, for example.
Constitutional Affairs Secretary Lord Falconer has since said requests will cost nothing in the "vast majority" of cases and confirmed that any request costing under £450 to answer will be free.
Some central government bodies will be able to impose a charge if the cost of digging out the information goes obove about £600 - which the government claims is the equivalent of three and a half days' work.
Announcing the changes, Lord Falconer said: "This government introduced the legislation to change the culture of official information and we believe it should be free. A fees structure which is simple to understand and easy to operate follows the spirit of the legislation."
He added: "We have always maintained that the majority of costs arising from this legislation should be met by the public purse but authorities will have the option either to charge the full cost of the more complicated and time-consuming requests which take longer to research and edit, or to not carry them out on cost grounds."
While cost may no longer be such a burden on the public, the issue of time-keeping has yet to be thoroughly resolved.
When the Act does come into effect, it will mean the public can ask questions of over 100,000 government bodies, including schools, hospitals and civil service departments, and will be legally entitled to receive an answer within 20 working days.
However, the deadline can be extended to 60 days if necessary.
A recent study found that 78 per cent of public sector bodies expect to not be able to fulfil their legal obligations by the 2005 deadline.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. Michael Decker
So let me see if I've got that right - councils that have bought a product such as Cryoserver can fulfil FoI requests covering email in around five seconds. Councils that haven't invested in such a system can charge members of the public for trawling through back-up tapes (e.g. Perot UK recently said this would cost them +£1m to produce emails for ONE worker!).
Easy lesson to be taken from this: if you DON'T invest in IT systems that will help you produce records quickly you can charge a fortune for carrying out that search, whereas if you DO invest then you'll have to produce records free of charge if you've invested in the proper kit to do it.
So... yet another law dressed up with a 'libertarian' name, but once you scrape below the surface actually protects and rewards those who want to hide information through poor records management. Great.
2. James Button
So - Ask a question and be billed £4000 for 60 days work.
Or can they charge for more than 1 person working on the task for the 60 days?
There's going to be a lot of work put into deciding who to ask the question of - pick a department that should legally have the answers to hand, and you could get billed for them to do the work they were required to have done, but didn't do till your request arrived.
Dare I ask the IR if I paid too much NI when DSS were in charge if contributions?
3. Mark Stanley
It is unlikely you will be charged anything for the vast majority of FOI requests. I think FoI is a worthwhile Act, and the orgs I have worked with are all serious about trying to provide information freely and openly.
The trigger to consider charges equates to 3 days work: £450. The more significant thing in my opinion is that organisations are not obliged to provide you with information if it costs more than that. So, they *can* just plain refuse, no matter how much you are willing to pay. I don't expect this to happen very often because it just feeds the conspiracy theorists.
This has been discussed this week in a commons select committee with the Information Commissioner - check out http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmconst/uc1060-iii/uc106002.htm
4. Frank Carpenter
expansion of powers?
"authorities will have the option either to charge the full cost of the more complicated and time-consuming requests which take longer to research and edit, or to not carry them out on cost grounds"
does that mean they can decide whether they look up the info, even if I am willing to pay?
5. anonymous
IT'S FREE - LET'S ASK - surely this is the attitude a free service would be open to. How much will tax payers be expected to fork out for the service. Surely a charge to ensure this service is not mistreated would be appropriate
6. Ian Carrington
Remember Small Councils
Easy for Lord Falconer to declare from the dizzy heights of the DCA that FOI requests will be "free" , supported as he is by endless civil servants.
What of small parish and town councils, who were promised that reasonable FOI costs could be recovered? A constituent with a grudge or a developer disgruntled by a planning decision could easily submerge a small council under serial requests the answering of which could devour the budget for a few hours of a part-time clerk which is all the resource many such councils have.
Unlike the Noble Lord we are elected, directly accountable to the communities we live in and operate on the kind of annual precept which wouldn't keep a minister in lunches. Also unlike him, we are not insulated from the real world by buffer of the Civil Service.
Cost recovery was envisaged from the start. This is just another promise ratted on in search of a cheap headline.