Helen
I have some information that may help you. I'll copy to list as it may be
of wider interest.
At an FOI conference I attended last year at Canada House, London, the
Canadian Information Commissioner stated that when their FOI Act came into
effect in 1983, demand was quite slow to take off. They had estimated about
50,000 requests a year in total would be received by some 150 government
institutions, but in fact it took 10 years to reach the first 50,000.
However, the Canadians were fairly early in the field, and I would expect
the Scots or the English to take up their new opportunity more quickly.
For the Republic of Ireland I have more detailed information, covering the
first 5 months plus of the operation of their FOI Act in the local authority
sector (21 Oct 1998-31 March 1999). The source is a report by the Minister
of Finance, who is responsible for overseeing Irish FOI. The total number of
requests received by local authorities was 708. From the bar chart in front
of me, the highest single total was approximately 115 (Dublin Corporation),
and 22% of authorities had requests in single figures. Unfortunately, I
don't have population figures for these authorities. A number of counties
(including the towns within them) had about 30 requests, which would work
out at around 70 for a full year.
There are some other things to take into account. I understand that the
Irish FOI Act does not actually require authorities to disclose information
dating from before the commencement of the Act (although they often do),
whereas both the UK Act and the Scottish Bill apply to information of any
age. This will result in a higher, probably a much higher, number of
requests, if only because all written enquiries by members of the public for
archival information will count as FOI requests.
The second important consideration is a point also made by James Lide in his
email. A significant number of requests are liable to be complex, e.g.
requesting all the information you have on a particular issue or a list of
all the files the authority holds. Individuals could be acting on behalf of
organisations or firms involved in matters in legal issues or matters of
topical controversy. They may have long shopping lists - and the public
authority concerned would have to deal in the first instance with any
appeals. It is not a matter that can be taken lightly.
Hope this is of some help to you. You can get in touch with me off-line if
you need to know more.
Frances Shaw
National Archives of Scotland
-----Original Message-----
From: Helen Taylor [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 February 2002 12:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Anticpated FOI enquiries
At the moment I'm trying to write a business plan to move the records centre
and archives to another building. One possible option is to dispense with
our service all together and out-source the modern records storage
commercially. One thing which would affect this decision is an increase in
enquiries for modern records through FOI. Does anyone know what kind of
level of enquiries there were in Canada and the other countries which have
recently introduced FOI? I can figure this into future anticipated costs
(or I could just make it up - they'd never know!).
Helen Taylor
Archivist/Records Manager
West Lothian Archives and Records Management Service
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