Your Right to Know: How to Use the Freedom of Information Act and Other Access Laws

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2005), "Your Right to Know: How to Use the Freedom of Information Act and Other Access Laws", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 6, pp. 805-807. https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410510632103

The 1 January 2005 marked the time when the Freedom of Information Acts for England and Wales and Northern Ireland (the Freedom of Information Act 2000) and for Scotland (the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002) came into effect. It was not the first (Sweden had one in 1766 and the USA in 1966, extended to electronic information in 1996), and other applicable law, in data protection and environmental information and health records, also existed, but it sharpened everyone up and demanded proactive attention.

 The principles sounded fine – more transparency and accountability – but the administrative implications were substantial – not just a changed mindset (from a culture of secrecy to one of “right to know”) but added responsibilities for records management and security, putting a publication scheme together, and then dealing with FOI requests. The literature mirrored practice, offering guidance on the interpretation of the act, then following up with the implementation. Of relevance to information professionals is Kelvin Smith's straight forward guide to implementing the act, Freedom of Information, from Facet Publishing (Smith, 2004), while Elizabeth Shepherd and Geoffrey Yeo pick up FOI in their wider examination of Managing Records, also from Facet Publishing (Shepherd and Yeo, 2003).

However, the discussion has been taking place on a wider front, as a visit to the websites of the Campaign for Freedom of Information and Privacy International (see www.privacyinternational.org/) will demonstrate. It is, in fact, an international issue. Heather Brooke is a journalist well known as a campaigner for open government. She has freelanced for broadsheets and broadcasters in the UK and worked in the USA as a newspaper reporter, some of the time as a crime reporter. She runs a course on FOI and open records law for the National Union of Journalists, and the topical web site “Your Right to Know” (see www.yrtk.org/), which has become a “must‐visit” for current issues in the field. This book is a spin‐off from that work and a complement to it, so use the two together.

Her approach is that of a journalist and social commentator interested in who has the power in the UK, how it is used, where to go for information, and how to use FOI and related law in order to protect your rights. If as taxpayers and consumers we pay for government, then government – Parliament and government departments, the law and the police, the National Health Service, the security services, education, environmental interests – needs to be accountable: strong FOI law protects our civil liberties and our privacy. Concern continues about the exemptions in the act, above all Section 23, which exempts the security services.

Exemptions are absolute (like official secrets and data protection) and qualified (where subject to the “public interest” test, itself based on notions of “harm” and “adverse effect”, and in the USA “prejudice”). It is often hard to see whether the exemption applies (for example, a private company provides public utility services or is part of confidential procurement with the government) or should apply (because exemptions can be used as “catch‐alls” to deny access). Some categories of information, like “the effective conduct of public affairs” and “government policy”, are unworkably wide. Predictably, many FOI requests have been from journalists and students to public authorities in the health‐care sector, and statistics are now firming up to reveal trends.

The journalist in Brooke comes through time and time again in hard‐hitting arguments about the challenges of getting reliable information about Parliament, Ministry of Defence spending, drug regulation procedures in the National Health Service, agricultural crises, court reports, and police evidence. Strong arguments are made to make security and police information more open, in order to make the state both more accountable and safe. Comparisons are made regularly between the UK and the USA, to the benefit of the USA. Telling examples of secrecy are used to mobilize the arguments. Non‐ and partial disclosure of health and environmental information (which has its separate Environmental Information Regulations) is a leitmotiv of what remains, far too much, the “right to secrecy” culture.

Brooke provides more than the arguments, which have a bravura of their own: she does two other highly useful things. First, she provides practical advice to the citizen setting about using FOI law (and it may include data protection, environmental information, and confidentiality law too) to elicit information – about a local council audit or about a coroner's report, or from the police or the local hospital. This will be of use to everyone, not just the specialist, with its practical advice on fees and procedures.

Second, she includes a wealth of contact information, providing in effect a directory of contact points and websites to follow up. This makes the book of particular relevance to the public library, the citizen's advice bureau, and the school and university library where such issues are studied. It also makes the book useful to the working journalist and researcher, coherently gathering together the information under themes like “health”, “law enforcement”, and “central government”, and to FOI officers and those responsible for copyright and data protection in data and records management. It would be good to see more on FOI and bulletin boards and listservs, and vis‐à‐vis internet service providers next time around.

She also has highly relevant comments on the cross‐over between FOI law and data protection (a visit to the websites of the Information Commissioners will help you clear up the differences) and between FOI law and EIR (the environment regulations), and about Crown Copyright, which (you may have missed this) can sneak in to make access more difficult. Increasing collaboration between public and private sector organizations is redefining “public authorities” (to which FOI law applies) by the month, so more legislative interpretation down the track.

Because things change, the paperback is recommended, and it looks as if Pluto will need to produce a new edition at least every two years. Your Right to Know follows the strong investigative line we would expect both from Brooke and Pluto, but raises issues, of law and citizen rights, and of finding your way through the information bureaucracy, that are of real importance today. Examples of letters for requesting information, and a well‐designed index, round off the book. A value‐for‐money newcomer, well heralded by its stable‐mate web site.