Friday
Apr062012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Save FOI
Apr 6, 2012 FOI As it becomes clear that there will be a determined step by bureaucrats to neuter the FOI Act by introducing charges, it is increasingly important that the public take steps to nip this activity in the bud.
Please take a look at the Save FOI website, and in particular the How You Can Help page.
Reader Comments (20)
Not many signatures yet, Mrs S and I have both signed
Sandy Sinclair
The e-Petition on the government website linked from the "How you can Help" page.
I just tried going to the web site. My browser is Firefox, with the NoScript extension. NoScript brought up a message saying “Potential Clickjacking / UI Redressing Attempt!”.
A direct link to the e-petition is
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29757
Slightly off-topic, but did anyone catch the R4 Today programme yesterday where there was full headline treatment for an issue that centred around an FOI request made by unspecified people (the BBC?) for a letter that was WRITTEN on 23rd March this year. The document was then used to have a go at a politician. That's a fast turnaround! It seems that in this case the FOI was used as a legitimate/convenient way of putting an internal document into public circulation; presumably with co-operation between the requester and the information releaser. Of course, if the body concerned had not wanted the document 'released' I wonder how long it would have taken, and how many appeals would be needed.
Don't just aim at saving FOI - aim for extending it.
Create tough new sanctions to those bureaucrats who don't comply with it.
Close any loopholes for bureaucrats trying to get round it.
And increase the 6-month limitation!
The State sector holds itself to such high standards of disclosure and intellectual integrity that FOI legislation is redundant.
Just 316 signatures- 317 including mine.
This petition needs much more exposure.
Having paid £1000-ish for a FoI request and suffered nearly 2 years of obstruction, lies and dissembling from The Environment Agency we at Avoncliff North Mill (a small hydroelectricity project) are enthusiasts for FoI and as others have said here - think it actually doesn't go far enough.
There should be some sanction on individuals and offences which relate to individual behavior relating to FoI along the lines of obstructing the course of justice.
We appealed our application twice and had an investigation by the Information Commissioners's Office which concluded that the Environment Agency were liars and perpetrated a wholly dishonest obstructive response to FoI - we have had our fee refunded and are getting costs for the third party work involved in the application...
I see nothing in the proposals to implement fines for individual officials deliberate non compliance and unreasonable delay in fulfilling FoI requests.
We were unequivocally lied to , documents were hidden and unreasonably withheld - all with the connivance of the individuals who perpetrated the law breaking and misdeeds we were seeking to document and expose.
Holding officials to account is hard enough without them being given the licence to ransom information - as we are discovering :-/
This is what the Conservative party promised before the 2010 general election:
"We will expand the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to include taxpayer-funded bodies such as Northern Rock and Network Rail, together with bodies such as the Local Government Association. This will give the public access to a huge amount of government information currently available only to Ministers."
"The Right to Data Act will give members of the public a legally enforceable ‘Right to Data’, so that the public has the right to appeal if public bodies refuse requests for data collected by government. This radical policy will help transform the culture of the public sector from one that presumes secrecy to one that presumes datasets should be open and shared with the public on an ongoing basis."
Link for previous post:
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/04/~/media/Files/Downloadable%20Files/Big%20ideas%20to%20give%20Britain%20Real%20change.ashx
Bish,
I've tried several times lately (tonight & 2 nights ago) to send you articles, and the contact site won't work for me:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/04/climategate_heads_to_court.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303302504577323514124004048.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopBucket
As I'm not Urapeein, I shouldn't to put my name on the petition.
Allow me however to comment from the land under the thumb of the latter-day Goebbels; Senator Steven Conroy. Who is also working very, very hard to shut down dissent and thoughtcrime. vis Finkelstein review of media facilitating censorship of even trivial web sites, pulling back the Australia Network (Australia's version of BBC overseas service) into the hands of government bureaucrats; and building a state monopoly for communications; the National(ised) Broadband Network which reverses hard-won privatisation measures in the fixed-line trelecommunications market. That's just the short list.
The objective of limiting FOI can only be to limit the exposure of the regulating class to criticism. Mainstream media are more obsessed with sensationalising the personal trivialities of "celebrities". For the very few real journalists working in such corporations, paying a fee for FOI is water off a duck's back. For the investigating individual, it's a hurdle.
And so it is (again) that one sees that big government favours big business. I gather that that is because big government and big business only need to cultivate a few "friends" in order to get their own way. Those who aren't part of the orgy have no say; are ignored as being insignificant or a nuisance at best; but a threat when others start to listen to them.
Not a UK resident, but I live in the land of the FOI. Yes, answering FOIA requests is expensive, but mostly because, while the information is readily accessible in most cases, it takes lots and lots of time to redact the painful (shameful) parts.
Just a suggestion here. You might ask how much expense is spent on avoiding compliance as to complying with the law. I bet the correct answer to be very telling.
More than saved, it needs to be drastically strengthened.
- no moratorium
- reduced exceptions
- heavy fines and/or dismissals for failure to comply
Punksta said, "...heavy fines and/or dismissals for failure to comply." From my experience with working with civil servants, though I have never been one, both these remedies seems far fetched. What would trouble, and very deeply, is an investigation by the IGO (Inspectors General Office). In the US, one is encouraged to notify the IGO whenever one suspects any breaking of laws by government officials or government contractors. The IGO are feared because they have almost limitless powers to enforce compliance and the repercussions of their reports have almost limitless effects to dismantle and bureaucratically erase those that they investigate.
After some thought, I have an additional suggestion. The current FOIA is actually much too weak. Frequently, in the course of my work (often funded by the government), I have been frustrated by the lack of ready access to information, information that would be ordinarily accessible by FOIA, but due to the limits of time, FOIA was not feasible means of access to that information. The FOIA time limits undermine the very just intentions of the laws. FOIA'ble information should be posted on accessible databases proactively as far as their interest to the public can be determined or forecast. That is the revision I think would be suitable to the FOIA laws, both UK and US. The FOIA should be extended, not hobbled.
'- reduced exceptions
- heavy fines and/or dismissals for failure to comply
Apr 7, 2012 at 9:40 AM | Punksta
Possible support from an unlikely source..?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/12/babar-ahmad-victory-freedom-expression
(Comments before closing: 4. There' s irony there already)
Of course, the exception thing may need to excuse that 'unique' way of getting interested, or not, that some in the 'public has a right to know' industry can manifest.
Maybe it's more getting the 'right' media and the 'right' judges together, as one might suspect that there rules are more equal for some than others often.
Apr 7, 2012 at 9:26 AM | Pluck
In our case we have a middle estimate of £500K for the amount of public money wasted by The Environment Agency at our watermill ( www.north-mill-avoncliff.co.uk ) project over two years of unlawful, arbitrary, irrational and self indulgent monkeying around which they sought to hide from FoI. That figure will climb as it ain't finished yet :-)
All this - for what amounts to little more than a fishing rod licence.....
Our case goes further into the realms of criminal misconduct - boy... do we wish we had an IGO to go to!