Freedom of Information Act 2000
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Freedom_of_Information_Act_2000".

See Freedom of information in the United Kingdom for a general discussion of freedom of information legislation throughout the United Kingdom. For the 2007 amendment bill see Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill.


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Freedom of Information Act 2000
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title: An Act to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them and to amend the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958; and for connected purposes.
Statute book chapter: 2000 c. 36
Territorial extent: England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland
Dates
Date of Royal Assent: 30 November 2000
Commencement:
Other legislation
Amendments:
Related legislation:
Status: Unknown
Text of statute as originally enacted
Official text of the statute as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database
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The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (2000 c. 36) is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level. It is an Act of Parliament that introduces a public "right to know" in relation to public bodies. The Act implements a manifesto commitment of the Labour Party in the 1997 general election. The final version of the Act is believed to have been diluted from that proposed while Labour was in opposition. The full provisions of the act came into force on 1 January 2005.

The Act is the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's Department (now renamed the Ministry of Justice). The Act led to the renaming of the Data Protection Commissioner (set up to administer the Data Protection Act), who is now known as the Information Commissioner). The Office of the Information Commissioner oversees the operation of the Act.

A second freedom of information law is in existence in the UK, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (2002 asp 13). It was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2002, to cover public bodies over which the Holyrood parliament, rather than Westminster, has jurisdiction. For these institutions, it fulfils the same purpose as the 2000 Act.

In 2007, the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was introduced as a private members bill to the House of Commons. If passed into law, the bill will exempt Members of Parliament (MP) and Peers from the provisions of the 2000 act, amongst other things.

Around 120,000 requests are made each year. Private citizens made 60% of them, with businesses and journalists accounting for 20% and 10% respectively. Journalists' requests took up more of officials' time than businesses' and individuals' requests. The Act cost £35.5 million in 2005 and supporters of the amendment bill contend it will save around £12m a year.[1]

The Freedom of Information Act has been used by news organisations to generate news stories.

Contents

Implementing the act

The Act affects over 100,000 public bodies including government departments, schools and councils.

The Act came into force in phases, with the final "general right of access" to public information under the Act coming into force on the 1 January 2005.

Media reports around that time suggested that public authorities sought to shred or delete documents prior to the act coming into force. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, admitted that some public bodies were more prepared for the Act than others, and this has been borne out by the differing performance of different Government departments since.

As well as the "general right of access", the Act places a duty on public authorities to adopt and maintain pro-active "publication schemes" for the routine release of important information (such as annual reports and accounts). These publication schemes must be approved by the Information Commissioner.

In general, public authorities have 20 working days to respond to an information request, though this deadline can be extended in certain cases and/or with the agreement of the requester. Under the Act, public authorities are encouraged to enter into a dialogue with the requester to better determine the information they want, and the format they want it in - in itself, a change in the way UK authorities interact with the public.

Requests can be refused if they cost more than £600, including time spent searching for files.[1]

Rights under the act

The act creates a general right of access, on request, to information held by public authorities (Schedule 1 of the act sets out a long list of the authorities covered by the act). However, there are numerous exemptions. Some of these are absolute; some are qualified, which means the public authority has to decide whether the public interest in disclosing the relevant information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption. An applicant for information who considers that a request has been wrongly rejected may apply to the Information Commissioner, who has the power to order disclosure. However, such orders can be appealed to a specialist tribunal (the Information Tribunal) and in some circumstances the Government has the power to override orders of the Information Commissioner.

Any person can request information under the act; this includes legal entities such as companies. There is no special format for a request. Applicants do not need to mention the act when making a request. Applicants do not have to give a reason for their request.

Unusual features

Three features of the UK Freedom of Information Act deserve special mention, as they differ from the position in many other countries.

  1. Requests by individuals for access to their own personal information will fall outside the act, and will continue to be dealt with under the Data Protection Act 1998.
  2. Requests for information about matters concerning the environment are dealt with by the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Those regulations, while similar to the FOIA, do differ in a number of ways.
  3. There is no procedure whereby third parties can challenge a decision by a public authority to disclose information: for instance, if a commercial organisation provides information to a public authority, and the authority discloses that information in response to an FOI Act request, the commercial organisation has no right of appeal against that decision. By contrast, "reverse FOI" applications of this type are common in the U.S.

Criticism

There has been some academic criticism of the Act. The following criticms of the substance of the Act are taken from the article Freedom of Information: A sheep in wolf's clothing? by Rodney Austin.

  • The range of exemptions is wider than for any of freedom of information act existing in a democratic state.
  • The right of access is to records rather than information raising the possibility of selective editing
  • The obligations to establish publication schemes were diluted meaning that there is no duty to publish information of any specified type
  • There is a ministerial veto which undermines the Act

Facts revealed by the act

Facts that have been brought to light by this Act include:

  • The Government agreed to a £1.5 million bailout of one of the most troubled schools in its flagship academies programme ten days before the 2005 general election
  • Ministers and MPs were claiming thousands of pounds on taxis as part of £5.9 million in expenses for travel
  • Foreign diplomats – who have diplomatic immunity – were accused of rapes, sexual assaults, child abuse and murders while working in Britain
  • Seventy-four police officers serving with the Metropolitan Police have criminal records
  • The Prime Minister wined and dined celebrities at the taxpayer’s expense at his country residence, Chequers. Guests included Esther Rantzen, Trevor Brooking, Elton John and Des O'Connor
  • Killings carried out by strangers increased a third after Tony Blair came to power
  • A clandestine British torture programme existed in post-war Germany, “reminiscent of the concentration camps”
  • Britain helped Israel to obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water
  • The NHS has been giving girls as young as 13 contraceptive injections and implants that make them infertile for up to three years, in an attempt to cut teenage pregnancies[2]

Amendment bill

Main article: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

The Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill is a private members bill introduced to the British House of Commons in 2007. Conservative MP David Maclean introduced the bill to ensure that MPs' correspondence is exempt from freedom of information laws. The bill will make time spent thinking whether to publish information a cost in the £600 limit. It will treat separate requests from an individual or company as a single submission in working out costs.[1]

The government says that the bill is being introduced to cut costs and discourage requests for trivial information,[3] although critics say that it is to keep embarrassing information secret.[1][4][5] The Economist contrasted the £12m the bill will save to the £555bn of taxpayers' money the government spent in 2006.[1] The then leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell, said there should not "be one law for MPs and a different law for everyone else" and that it looked like "Parliament has something to hide".[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Every expense spared", The Economist, 23 December 2006, Number 8532, page 46.
  2. ^ "59 things that would have stayed secret", The Times, 5 March 2007. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.
  3. ^ "Bid to put off info time-wasters", BBC, 24 May 2007. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.
  4. ^ "Change 'will weaken' openness law", BBC, 17 October 2006. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.
  5. ^ "Ministers to limit openness law", BBC, 14 December 2006. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.
  6. ^ "Blair 'no comment' on info bill", BBC, 25 April 2007. Retrieved on 22 June 2007.

Further reading

  • The Law of Freedom of Information (MacDonald, Jones et al.: OUP 2003)
  • Information Rights (Coppel at al.: Sweet and Maxwell 2004)
  • Your Right To Know (Brooke, H.: Pluto Press 2006)

External links

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Freedom of Information legislation worldwide
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United Kingdom legislation
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Acts of Parliament of the English Parliament to 1601 · 1601–1706
Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland
Acts of the Parliament of Ireland to 1700 · 1701–1800
Acts of Parliament of Great Britain 1707–1719 · 1720–1739 · 1740–1759 · 1760–1779 · 1780–1800
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