Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act was introduced in 2005 and is an important piece of legislation for journalists if utilised properly. This legislation allowed people to request documents and information held by public authorities.

• McNae’s gives some examples of public authorities covered by the act:
• ·         National, government departments and ministries
• ·         The House of Commons, The House of Lords, the national assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland
• ·         The armed forces
• ·         Local government authorities
• ·         National park authorities
• ·         Universities, colleges and schools

This means that under the FOI act any member of the public can write to any of these agencies and request information. Under the act the agency must normally respond within 20 working days and must either supply the information requested or explain why it cannot be supplied. There are several restriction that mean that an organisation can refuse to release the information.

There is a cost limit which restricts the information that can be obtained without any charge. If it requests costs less than £450 then the department must provide the information without any charge. If the cost of obtaining the requested information exceeds this limit then the request can either be refused by the organisation, the organisation can charge the person that requested the information or they can still supply the information for free. These restrictions mean it is important to request information that is only necessary because otherwise you may not receive any information because of the price limits.

There are certain government organisations that can refuse requests due to several exemptions put in place when the act was created. Any information dealing with national security matters can be refused, e.g. MI5 and MI6. It makes sense for this information to not be available to the public because of its nature. If the information can be reasonably obtained by other means, for example it may be available on a website or in library archives then the request will be refused because it would be a waste of the agencies time and money. Court records cannot be obtained through the FOI act because a court is not a public authority and so is not covered under the act.

Personal information cannot be released under the act because it does no override data protection law. The authority can edit the text and change it so the person cannot be identified from the information that is given. It is also noted in McNae’s that in these cases it is important to take into account the difference between professional personal information and personal information. This could be the difference between getting information about someone’s job description or professional responsibilities and getting information about their sick days.

If the information was provided to the authority in confidence by the person who provided it then the authority has entered into a contract and therefore cannot release the information. Also any information which is forbidden to be released by another law cannot be released under the FOI act. The example of this given in McNae’s is any complaints against police which is covered under the provision of the Police Act.

There are several qualified exemptions in the Act that allow an organisation the right to deny a request. The organisation must first apply the public interest test before they can deny a request. If the request is denied because of one of the qualified exemptions then the person who requested the information can appeal to the Information Commissioner and the Information Tribunal. If the commissioner accepts the claim and demands the information be released then the organisation can appeal against this decision to the Information Tribunal, or if the request is again denied by the commissioner then the person can appeal to the Tribunal. These are the two stages of appeal after this, if the request is still refused then there is nothing more the person who requested the information can do. If the information has been accepted for release then cabinet minsters’ have a power of veto and can block the information being released.

Very recently WikiLeaks has released large amounts of information from the American embassy which people are claiming will damage national and world security but the website has been closed down by the US government, but the information has been leaked to several large newspapers around the world. Here is a link to the Guardian’s coverage of the material and the information they are releasing: Guardian wikileaks coverage A video of journalists discussing Wikilinks