The Government today set out its commitment to build on the success of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act's first year and indicated how it might address the costs of dealing with FoI requests.
Responding to the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee's report Freedom of Information-one year on, Lord Falconer, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, said:
"I welcome and share the overall assessment of the Committee that the implementation of the FoI Act has been a 'significant success'. The Act has been historic in that for the first time the public has obtained a statutory right to information held by over 100,000 public authorities across the whole of the public sector."
The Committee's inquiry into the first year of FoI found that the significant amount of new information being released was often being used in a constructive and positive way by a range of different individuals and organisations.
Lord Falconer continued:
"The FoI Act has put citizens on a more equal footing with the institutions that serve them and brought government closer to the people.
"They can access information about their local community in the UK as never before - information about the performance of their local hospital, their local environment, their local schools.
"Freedom of Information has benefited the people - that's what it was intended for and we need to continue to build on its success.
"But Freedom of Information has to be balanced with good government. It would be wrong not to make adjustments in light of experience and make sure we get the balance right between the provision of services and the provision of information."
The DCA has today published an independent review of the impact of FoI by economic consultants Frontier Economics. The review examined the cost of delivering FoI across central government and the wider public sector and options for changes to the fees regime.
Based on Frontier Economics' report, the Government is considering changes that will allow the inclusion of reading time, consideration time and consultation time in the calculation of the appropriate limit (£600) above which requests could be refused on cost grounds; and a greater ability to aggregate requests.
The Government is not minded to introduce a flat rate fee.
The Government will consider the report in more detail and responses to it before bringing forward secondary legislation.
