Ian Pearson said that he would welcome views on his recent post about
Highland Council's response to his FoI enquiry
Not sure how helpful that is, Ian, and I don't know that you've been very
fair on the Council.
The Public Records Acts don't apply to Scotland. There are some
administrative procedures adopted under them, especially by the National
Archives of Scotland, but Scottish Local Authorities do not have the same
broad statutory responsibilities in this regard as, say, our colleagues down
south.
The small but growing band of Scottish Local Authority Archivists and
Records Managers, through ASLWAG and the SoA(S), have long campaigned for
some kind of Scottish Records Act. The Exec. are now making more promising
noises: but statute remains elusive.
You single out Highland Council, but to be fair no more than a handful of
Scottish Local Authorities have anything near a comprehensive retention
schedule.
The point is not that we are failing to comply with the law: there is no
concrete records law with which to comply (leaving aside less mandatory
requirements such as the FoI S61 code, or the more vague aspirations of the
'94 Local Gov. Act). Without such legal obligations, Scottish Local
Authority records managers have had a difficult job in convincing our
employers of the need to prioritise and adequately resource such work.
Anyway, glad to hear that you are in favour of blind testing of FoI
enquiries. Since you have also had the time to "pretend to be a member of
the public", perhaps the UKAEA can show us how it's done?! I hope that,
however, if there are any problems in the way that you deal with enquiries,
these can be resolved through your internal appeals mechanisms or by
complaint to the Scottish Information Commissioner - rather than be your
being rubbished in a public forum such as this...
Craig
____________________
Craig Geddes,
Council Records Manager
Legal Services
East Renfrewshire Council
Eastwood Park
Rouken Glen Road
G46 6UG
(0141) 577 3059
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