I agree. The way it stands at the minute, it seems as if the compliant
authorities with hard working FOI Officers (ahem) get 'punished' with
negative news stories (and they are always negative), whilst the
non-compliant authorities, who maybe ignored the FOI request altogether,
are barely mentioned.
The media who rely on FOI stories really should try to make more of the
non-compliance, in my opinion.
A 'thank you' now and again wouldn't go amiss either!
I expect if you posted this to the Freedom of Information jiscmail list
there'd be quite a few opinions on this!
Catherine
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The UK Records Management mailing list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Sharp, Deirdre
> Sent: 26 January 2009 13:30
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: FOI slackers
>
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> Has anyone else noticed when reading press reports of the
> outcome of their FOI requests what a high proportion of
> authorities seem to get away with non-compliance? We recently
> responded to a request about our pension scheme in full
> accordance with S.45. When the story was published, it was
> stated that around 60% of authorities contacted had replied.
> It may be that some of the 40% that allegedly didn't had
> refused on cost grounds or because they didn't hold
> information. Maybe the media need to complain more often to the ICO?
>
> Our concern is that when senior managers see this, they
> question the efforts we put in to comply and do a good job -
> may even be tempted to reduce our resources.
>
> Not much of an incentive is it?
>
> Deirdre Sharp
>
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