FOI 64

Written evidence from Kent County Council

1. 1.1

Does the Freedom of Information Act work effectively? Yes on the whole but there is much scope for improvement.

1.2 Since 2005, Kent County Council has become more proactive at publishing information, not only because changes to legislation have required this, but also at its own volition. However, despite putting more information out there, the number of requests for information falling under the scope of FOIA (and Environmental Information Regulations 2004) has increased dramatically year-on-year from 504 requests in 2005 to 1819 in 2011. 1.3 Sadly the resources to deal with these requests have not increased and there is concern that the pressure that FOIA puts on local authorities that are already under budgetary constraints is diverting valuable resources away from arguably more important council services such as social care, education and highways. 1.4 See KCCs statistics which we voluntarily publish

https://shareweb.kent.gov.uk/Documents/council-and-democracy/disclosurelog/Requests%20for%20information%20-%20year-byyear%20comparison%20statistics.pdf 1.5 The increase in requests despite making more information readily accessible leads us to three conclusions: 1. People are more aware of their rights 2. We are not publishing the right information (i.e.; what people want to see) 3. People are lazy and it is easier to ask than conduct research themselves 1.6 A good example of this is the mandatory publishing of transactions in excess of 500 which KCC has been doing since September 2010. Due to the constraints of KCCs financial database which was not designed for this purpose (KCC hasnt got the spare millions to replace or update), it costs approximately 120 a month plus dozens of hours of officer time to redact and prepare data for publication. Given that in the 16 months since this information has been published on our website, there have only been 3000 visits to this webpage and this figure includes internal as well as external hits, it is questionable whether publishing this information is actually value for money as there clearly isnt the demand that the Department for Communities anticipated. 2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Freedom of Information Act? Strengths 2.1 The Act has definitely forced traditionally secretive cultures to become more transparent and public authorities have been forced to accept that they are going to

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be subject to scrutiny and rightly so. Within KCC, there is certainly more awareness of the need for openness and accountability and there is an acceptance that no longer can business be conducted behind closed doors. The exposure of M.P.s' expenses is a good example of the strength of the Act 2.2 The Act has also obliged public authorities to clean up their act and pay attention to their procedures and processes for example how records are managed, website design, basically improve their housekeeping. Weaknesses 2.3 The Act is open to abuse in that commercial companies use it to glean information free of charge at the taxpayers expense which they will then use for their own profit. 2.4 Journalists and the Media also use the Act as a fishing expedition for potential stories, in effect utilising valuable council resources to do their research for them. Annoyingly, the information provided to the Media is often misrepresented or taken out of context to sensationalise and sell news. 2.5 The Act has become an additional weapon in the arsenal of the vexatious and repeat complainers who having exhausted the complaints process, then use FOIA as an alternative route of communications into the authority. 2.6 The Act does not facilitate being able to distinguish between the genuine requests and those that seemingly have no value, but can not be classed as vexatious. See example http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/red_pens#outgoing-175182 3. Is the Freedom of Information Act operating in the way that it was intended to? 3.1 Probably not as there was no way that legislation could anticipate demand, how the Act could be used and the strain it would put on resources in an already stretched public sector. 3.2 Proactive publication has also created problems for KCC. For example, voluntarily publishing FOI performance statistics (which Local Government is not currently obliged to do) highlighted to the Information Commissioner that KCCs compliance with statutory timescales was less than 85%. The ICO subjected KCC to three-months monitoring and has obliged KCC to sign a formal undertaking, even though there had been no complaints from applicants about KCCs (lack of) timeliness. 4. The Way Forward

4.1 Listed below are some changes to the Act that if implemented might circumvent some of the difficulties that certainly KCC experiences in trying to achieve compliance with the Act. 4.2 The Act should be more prescriptive about cost limits. The MoJ should review what can be included in the time limit when assessing whether complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit or not.

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4.3 Reading information to deliberate exemptions and redacting exempt information should be included in the 450/18 hours and if not (as is at present) the time limit should be reduced. I am sure the example quoted on pages 52 & 53 (187 188) of the report is not an isolated incident! 4.4 The Act should be more prescriptive about information that should be published by stipulating specific information that must be included in a publication scheme (or its replacement subject to the publication scheme review). This will make a certain level of transparency, such as that outlined in The Code of Recommended Practice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency, a statutory requirement and there can be no argument about what is expected of public authorities. 4.5 There should be some way of distinguishing between applicants who will profit from information collated at local authorities expense (commercial companies) and genuine requests. 4.6 There should also be a mechanism or test to identify and reject time wasting requests such as What varieties/types of biscuits were bought by KCC between April 2010 - April 2011? Perhaps the Act should include guidance to applicants on things to consider before submitting a request? If the information requested is to a degree of detail that they would not hold themselves on a household level? 4.7 The introduction of a (nominal?) fee (rather like subject access requests under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998) may deter frivolous requests or the round robin requests from commercial companies, journalists and the media. 4.8 If the Act is tightened and sharpened and less ambiguous, then the Information Commissioner should have greater enforcement powers. Perhaps the introduction of a system of fines, akin to those that can be deployed for Data Protection breaches, should be introduced?

February 2012