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More Open but Not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom Central Government – BEN WORTHY (PDF)

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Published on: October 30, 2010

Flag of the United Kingdom, Union Flag.Image via WikipediaMore Open but Not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom Central Government
BEN WORTHY*

This article examines the impact of Britain’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000 on British central government. The article identifies six objectives for FOI in the United Kingdom and then examines to what extent FOI has met them, briefly comparing the United Kingdom with similar legislation in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. It concludes that FOI has achieved the core objectives of increasing transparency and accountability, though the latter only in particular circumstances, but not the four secondary
objectives: improved decision-making by government, improved public understanding, increased participation, and trust in government. This is not because the Act has “failed” but because the objectives were overly ambitious and FOI is shaped by the political environment in which it is placed.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2010.01498.x/pdf

FOIwiki – helping you unlock the secrets of UK Freedom of Information laws

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Published on: September 21, 2010

FOIwiki is designed to help you ensure your Freedom of Information requests are fairly treated by Public Authorities. Often the Authority will misapply an Exemption to your request and not supply the information you’re after. This site allows you to check the law and official guidance all in one place.
The Freedom of Information laws all roughly follow the same process, although there are some subtle differences:

  1. you make an information request to a public authority
  2. the authority can ask you to clarify this
  3. under certain circumstances, the authority may ask you to pay a fee to cover printing and postage or other costs
  4. you wait for them to answer back within a certain time period
  5. the authority will either send you the information you ask or will refuse to send it, claiming one or more exemptions that are allowed to them under the laws.
  6. for refusals, you can make an appeal to the authority to get them to reconsider the exemptions
  7. if this is still unsuccessful, you can apply to the Information Commissioner (or the Scottish Information Commissioner) for a decision on the matter
  8. if this is still unsuccessful, you can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (or the Court of Session for Scotland’s FOI laws)

post #35

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Published on: December 21, 2006

This is from the Open Knowledge Foundation Weblog in the UK:

A great day for the law and for the people
December 20th, 2006

Today the Department for Constitutional Affairs’ long awaited Statute Law Database project has launched, free at point of use for anyone. It’s super. Last week, access to consolidated versions of the law of the UK wasn’t possible without paying lots of money. Now it is free.

There are some down sides – 40 acts are not covered at all, law is only guaranteed included up until the end of 2001, and the data only has history of changes back to 1991.

It is almost inconceivable that a citizen would have to pay for the ability to read the text of the laws of their country.

- Greg Pemberton (RTKNS web admin)

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