Local authority set up and management comes "without serious problems"
Councils complying with the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2000 are paying £339 to process each transaction request, a government report has found. The survey, carried out by the UCL Constitution Unit on behalf of the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), found that implementation of the Act had been smooth and successful on whole.
During the first six months of 2005, 35,406 requests were received by councils in England.
The total set up cost for English local authorities is £15.76 million and 480,247 hours were spent dealing with requests at a cost of £12m. 280 of the 387 local authorities were contacted in the survey, of which 200 replied.
"Overall it appears that local authorities handled implementation without serious problems and generally met response deadlines," the report said. "Volumes of requests, at an overall average of 15 per month per authority, were within reasonable expectations."
Costs are generally not offset by charging. 68 per cent of councils process FoI requests free of charge. Of the remaining 32 per cent, 73 per cent are charging just for photocopying and postage. In general, the effort and cost involved in setting up charging were considered to be greater than the return, respondents said.
While some refusals to supply information were due to the 23 exemption clauses within the Act, not all were. In total 2,886 (one in twelve) requests were refused by councils. As well as having trouble weighing public interest factors against requests for information, some councils found a clash between the FoI and Environmental Information Regulatory regimes and ran into difficulties deciding whether the information in question was 'environmental' or not.
Many applications for information fell foul of procedural problems and could not comply with time scales or use the request logging system correctly.
Councils also reported that resources were stretched, with a number worried about a lack of budget and of staff only being allocated to FoI on a temporary basis. Management's reluctance to disclose information, problems finding the information requested, difficulty with clarifying requests, consultation with third parties, concern about the "validity" of business requests, and "persistent long term complainers" were all mentioned as stumbling blocks to smooth implementation.
A number of councils reported that FoI had brought about benefits for their organisation, giving rise to greater co-operation and communication within departments, encouraging openness and generally raising the profile of records management.
But the system is not perfect, councils said. Asked about best practice, some asked central government to help them sort out the overlaps in guidance, particularly between FoI and EIRs. A central advice service which answered queries about tricky requests would also be helpful, respondents said. And although LAs reported that they had generally coped with budget demands during the first six months, they were less certain about continued funding to answer FoI requests in the future.
Read the survey report in full: http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/aio/1232143 (765KB – PDF)
