In 2000, an Act of Government in the UK became law, in a bid to reduce the amount of “secrecy” in government. Known as The Freedom of Information Act (FOI), it enables the public access to information held by publicly funded bodies. Over the years, the act has shown to work well, providing info for many major media stories of national public interest – the most prominent of which was probably the revealing of the outrageous amount of money many of our elected Members of Parliament were claiming as expenses.
In any society, should access to publicly funded information ever only be a privilege for those who can afford to pay for it?
Over the years, there have been comments from various quarters that the act has been inappropriately used by journalists to create stories. Anyone who knows me will appreciate that I do not always come across as the biggest fan of newspaper and TV journalists. However, in this instance, I would suggest that as the information being supplied through the FOI applications only provides fact, i.e. the truth on a particular point of question, then surely it is only those with something to hide who would be concerned about this democratic process.
There is no doubt that the act isn’t just a useful tool for journalists, it is a useful route to information for everyone and I, myself, have used it with success. By “success” I mean it has, on a number of occasions, enabled access to info that perhaps politicians, policy makers and campaigners would rather prefer remained hidden from public scrutiny.
One particular request I made identified a significant amount of public money (in excess of $150,000) being spent by a local council on a campaign calling for a ban on tanning beds. At the time, the UK, along with the rest of the world, was still in the depths of an economic crisis and yet, this budget spend was approved by a city with one of the most challenging health, social and economic populations in the UK. We challenged the campaign’s objective and questioned whether it was an appropriate use of a cash-strapped local authority. As far as I am aware, no further monies were allocated and, of course, tanning beds are still very much in use right across the UK.
Just a single example of how the FOI can hold public bodies accountable for their decisions and there will be countless others for all areas of public and business interests. Even the House of Commons Justice Select Committee concluded the act was working well. So, imagine how surprised I was to learn that the government has ordered a review of the act, supposedly to make it harder to make FOI requests and easier to refuse them.
The likely outcome of the review is that the government will recommend charging a fee for what is currently a free process. In addition, public authorities may also be able to refuse requests on the grounds of cost – surely an easy “out” to say that responding to any request in which the authority would prefer not to provide the information was simply too costly. In essence, this could render the FOI useless. In any society, least of all a democratic society, should access to publicly funded information ever only be a privilege for those who can afford to pay for it? I think not.
