Ben Worthy

The impact of the freedom of information act on central government in the UK: does FOI work?

PART I: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN THEORY Introduction What are the Objectives of FOI? Whitehall and Freedom of Information Assessing the Impact of FOI in Britain PART II: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IN PRACTICE How FOI Works Has FOI Led to more Transparent Government? The Culture of Secrecy Has FOI Increased Government Accountability? Civil Service Neutrality Ministerial Accountability Effective Government and the Quality of Decision-making The Cabinet System of Government Has FOI Increased Public Understanding of Government Decision-making? Has FOI Led to Increased Trust in Government? Has FOI Led to Increased Participation in the Political Process? Has FOI Met its Objectives? Conclusion Appendices Appendix 1: How Does the UK FOI Perform against Legislation in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand? Appendix 2: The Requester Appendix 3: Ladder of Openness and Participation Appendix 4: Methods Bibliography

Assessing Government Transparency : An Interpretive Framework

How can we evaluate government transparency arrangements? While the complexity and contextuality of the values at stake defy straightforward measurement, this article provides an interpretative framework to guide and structure assessments of government transparency. In this framework, we discern criteria clusters for political transparency—democracy, the constitutional state, and social learning capacity—and for administrative transparency—economy/efficiency, integrity, and resilience. The framework provides a structured “helicopter view” of the dimensions that are relevant for a contextual assessment of transparency. An illustrative case discussion of the introduction of Freedom of Information (FOI) in the United Kingdom demonstrates its utility.

Has Freedom of Information Increased Government Accountability

Increasing government accountability was the second of the two ‘overarching’ FOI objectives. However, FOI is not a direct accountability mechanism in and of itself. It is a potential tool which provides information that can be used by accountability mechanisms (see Chapter 2). This chapter and Chapter 10 draw on Philp’s definition of accountability to ask whether and how FOI brings about accountability, who is holding whom accountable for what and where (Philp 2009: 28). The whom and where will be dealt with in Chapter 10, as they relate to ministerial accountability.

Jeremy Corbyn and the Limits of Authentic Rhetoric

The New Labour project shifted the party’s rhetoric firmly to the centre ground, relegating older left-wing rhetoric to political fringes. Yet having symbolized everything that was wrong with Labour for the Blairite modernizers, this ‘old’ rhetoric bounced back. Jeremy Corbyn’s remarkable 2015 leadership campaign re-energised language and ideas thought to have been expunged from Labour’s lexicon, shifting the party’s priorities to social movement-building and away from parliamentary activity. This chapter explores the role of the ‘authentic’ political outsider, utilizing the classical rhetorical approach of ethos, pathos, and logos. It shows that Corbyn revived a strand of campaigning and grassroots rhetoric that proved surprisingly resilient, rebooting seemingly moribund ideas. However, authenticity has its limitations when rhetoric fails to present a credible pathway to power.

Freedom of Information and Universities

The full provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force in the UK in 2005. The FOI Act covers 100,000 different public bodies, from central and local government to hospitals, schools and universities. Coverage of universities has been the subject of much debate since 2009, when the so-called ‘climate-gate’ scandal exposed evidence of apparent attempts to evade FOI requests at the University of East Anglia. The application of FOI to universities remains controversial but what difference has FOI made to how universities work? What has the act achieved? How has FOI changed university life? At the centre of every Freedom of Information law is the right to ask for information, subject to certain restrictions (called exemptions) and an external appeals system in the shape of a commissioner, tribunal or the courts. This article is based on findings from a project looking at the impact of FOI on universities, and is based on interviews, survey data, coding of logs of FOI requests and evidence from other inquiries. Although there have been few requests for research, the impact of FOI has been felt in universities. The Act has increased transparency in particular areas, most notably with regards to salaries, contracts and human resources issues. It has had less effect on records or teaching. By far the biggest worry is the possible effect on research. Those we spoke to were divided over whether it had affected how or if research is undertaken. This was made more complicated by disagreement over how robust existing protections are and the fact that FOI requests for research information are often for topics that are already controversial. There is also concern about the effects of competition in the future as the university landscape changes. The Freedom of Information Act has forced universities to become more transparent. While the effect of FOI on research remains to be seen, the new spirit of openness is already causing tension within the academy. Ben Worthy and Gabrielle Bourke report.

Freedom of Information and the MPs’ Expenses Crisis

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act played a key part in triggering the MPs’ expenses crisis. Requests made under the Act led to the collation of all MPs’ expenses into one record, while the drawn out process of appeal and counter-appeal drew attention to the issue. The number of FOI requests submitted and their impact were shaped by Parliament’s unique governance arrangements, resistance to disclosure and the internal Commons culture. However, the crisis was not the result of a simple ‘disclosure’; it was an old-fashioned leak that finally exposed information on MPs’ expenses.

How Well Does Freedom of Information Work

This final chapter draws together our main conclusions, and puts them in a broader context. We start by assessing the extent to which FOI has achieved its objectives and changed the Whitehall model. The British experience of FOI is then compared with that of other Westminster systems: Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, pointing up the similarities and differences. This leads into an analysis of the iron laws of FOI, hard facts which are common to all FOI regimes, and to a discussion of some of the enduring myths and paradoxes of FOI. The chapter concludes by looking ahead to the challenges which FOI faces in the future.

How Freedom of Information Works

This chapter will describe the FOI process from toe to tip. The aim of the book is to evaluate the impact of FOI. To do this we must first understand the subject of this chapter: ‘how FOI works’. The chapter is not a costing of the process (for which see Frontier Economics Limited 2006), nor a comparison of FOI’s performance in the UK with other countries (for which see Appendix 1), nor guidance (for which see the ICO and MOJ websites). It is a purely descriptive chapter, based on interviews with officials, statistics, case law and guidance, that creates a composite picture of the ‘typical’ FOI process in a central government department of state. But it is crucial to the wider purposes of the study, because the practical functioning of an FOI regime underpins and constrains its ability to achieve its objectives.

Whitehall and Freedom of Information

This chapter sets the scene for evaluating the impact of FOI on Whitehall. The changes FOI may bring to Whitehall are a source of both hope and fear. The aspirations included further reduction to its traditional ‘culture of secrecy’, and improved decision-making as a result of additional transparency and scrutiny. The fears were — and are — that FOI would undermine longstanding principles, such as ministerial accountability to Parliament, civil service neutrality and the Cabinet system, and that decision-making, rather than improving, would deteriorate as advice, opinions and decisions would no longer be recorded to avoid their disclosure. Each of these fears and aspirations has its own chapter in the second section of the book.

Increased Public Understanding of Government Decision-making?

This chapter looks at whether FOI has increased public understanding of government decision-making. It examines the forces that influence public knowledge, the general move by the government towards facilitating increased understanding, the role of the media and the impact of the internet. It then analyses to what extent FOI has increased understanding of both how and why decisions are made, looking at FOI’s effect directly on requesters and indirectly on the public through reporting of FOI in the media.