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Based on interviews with officials, requesters and journalists, as well as a survey of FOI requesters and a study of stories in the national media, this book offers a unique insight into how the Freedom of Information Act 2000 really works.
Incorporating HC 1849-i-v, session 2010-12. Additional written evidence is contained in Volume 3, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/justicecttee
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 received Royal Assent on 30 November 2000 and came into full effect on 1 January 2005. The Act gave the public, for the first time, a statutory right (subject to appropriate limitations) to i) find out if a public authority held specified information and, ii) if so, to be provided with access to it. This Memorandum revisits the original objectives and evaluates whether those have been met. It is felt that the FIOA has become embedded in the culture of public authorities and its effects on openness and transparency are clear. The successes do not come without cost, however, primarily in the form of concern at the time taken to process and respond to FOI requests, to conduct public interest tests and consider exemptions. The extent though to which original decisions are neither complained against, or are upheld on complaint, indicate that the FOIA is working largely as it should
Today, transparency is a widely heralded value, and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is often held up as one of the transparency movement’s canonical achievements. Yet while many view the law as a powerful tool for journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens to pursue the public good, FOIA is beset by massive backlogs, and corporations and the powerful have become adept at using it for their own interests. Close observers of laws like FOIA have begun to question whether these laws interfere with good governance, display a deleterious anti-public-sector bias, or are otherwise inadequate for the twenty-first century’s challenges. Troubling Transparency brings together leading scholars from different disciplines to analyze freedom of information policies in the United States and abroad—how they are working, how they are failing, and how they might be improved. Contributors investigate the creation of FOIA; its day-to-day uses and limitations for the news media and for corporate and citizen requesters; its impact on government agencies; its global influence; recent alternatives to the FOIA model raised by the emergence of “open data” and other approaches to transparency; and the theoretical underpinnings of FOIA and the right to know. In addition to examining the mixed legacy and effectiveness of FOIA, contributors debate how best to move forward to improve access to information and government functioning. Neither romanticizing FOIA nor downplaying its real and symbolic achievements, Troubling Transparency is a timely and comprehensive consideration of laws such as FOIA and the larger project of open government, with wide-ranging lessons for journalism, law, government, and civil society.
This White Paper sets out clearly how the UK will continue to unlock and seize the benefits of data sharing in the future in a responsible way. Firstly by ensuring equality in access to data; secondly in building greater trust in public data; and thirdly by ensuring that public services are more personalised and efficient by being smarter with the data public bodies hold. The UK is currently co-chairing the Open Government Partnership of 55 governments whose theme is 'Transparency drives prosperity' with the belief that opening up data will empower citizens, foster innovation and reform public services. It is also, therefore, about how others participate. About businesses and organisations becoming more transparent themselves and pushing data into the public domain and individuals taking that data and using it to make better decisions or press for different types of services.
Freedom of information (FOI) is now an international phenomenon with over 100 countries from Albania to Zimbabwe enacting the right to know for their citizens. Since 2005, the UK’s Freedom of Information Act has opened up thousands of public bodies to unparalleled scrutiny and prompted further moves to transparency. Wherever the right to know is introduced, its success depends on the way it is implemented. In organisations worldwide, FOI only works because of those who oversee its operation on a day-to-day basis, promoting openness, processing requests and advising colleagues and the public. FOI is dependent on the FOI Officers. The Freedom of Information Officer’s Handbook is a comprehensive guide to FOI and its management. It is designed to be an indispensable tool for FOI Officers and their colleagues. It includes: - a guide to the UK’s FOI Act, the right to know and the exemptions - clear analysis of the most important case law and its implications for the handling of FOI requests - pointers to the best resources to help FOI officers in their work - explanations of how FOI interacts with other legislation, including detailed explorations of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and how the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation impacts on FOI - a look at requirements to proactively publish information and the effect of copyright and re-use laws on FOI and open data - comparisons of the UK’s Act with FOI legislation in other jurisdictions from Scotland to South Africa - an exploration of the role of the FOI Officer: who they are, what they do, their career development and what makes them effective - suggestions on how to embed FOI within an organisation using effective procedures, technology and training - a stage-by-stage guide to processing requests for information. The Freedom of Information Officers’ Handbook includes the latest developments in FOI including amendments made to the UK’s FOI Act by the Data Protection Act 2018 and the revised s.45 code of practice published by the Cabinet Office in July 2018.
This study examines the evolution and political consequences of the 2009 British MPs' expenses scandal. Despite claims of a revolution in British politics, we show how the expenses scandal had a limited, short-term impact.
Interpreting Governance, High Politics, and Public Policy offers the latest perspectives on the interpretive approach to governance and public policy research. This book commemorates more than a decade of governance research by Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes, the leading exponents of interpretive political science in the United Kingdom. It explains how insights from the interpretive perspective may be used to advance the study of governance, high politics, and public policy. Featuring contributions from major scholars in the field, both inside and outside the interpretivist fold, the authors critically reflect upon interpretivism and consider how aspects of the interpretive approach apply to their own research. The authors debate the significance of Bevir and Rhodes’s work and develop future directions for interpretive governance research. The chapters link one of the most innovative contemporary perspectives in political science with the latest empirical studies. Contributing towards setting the governance research agenda, Interpreting Governance, High Politics and Public Policy is an excellent resource for the study of interpretive policy analysis.
Setting out a history of cyberspace and its relationship with the discipline that was to become digital humanities, this book is an account of an often-forgotten period of internet history in the 1990s when this medium was in its infancy. It provides a detailed account of the concepts of 'cyberspace' and the 'virtual', which were characteristic of a perception that using the internet allowed users to enter a separate space from everyday life- a world elsewhere. In doing so, it argues that this libertarian idea of the internet framed it as a new frontier, where the rules of the everyday world did not and should not apply, and where the individual could find freedom. These early norms and the regrettable lack of regulation that was a consequence of them, this book argues, contributed to many of current issues with internet media. including of toxic communication, disinformation and over-commercialisation