We may benefit in this discussion from New Zealand's experience, a country
which introduced similar legislation 20 years ago. There's a National Radio
interview with a number of users of the Act here:
http://tinyurl.com/2xp72
(I love tinyurls ;o) Furthermore, the following research was completed in
2001:
Requests made under the Official Information Act 1982: a survey at the agency
level.
It claims:
The Official Information Act (OIA) has been in force for almost two decades.
During these years there has been little research published about how citizens
use this legislation, or how agencies have responded to requests made under
the Act. The aim of this project is to produce basic research data from
a range of agencies to quantify use made of the Act, and to examine what
other request information sample agencies hold.
The study uses the Act as a survey instrument to produce a high response
rate to the questionnaire and to produce qualitative and quantitative data
about the request process. The results show that only a minority of surveyed
agencies record the number of requests they receive or the category of information
requesters, e.g. news media and political parties. Compared to the detailed
information recorded by the Ombudsmen there appears to be little consistency
of request record keeping across sampled agencies. This record keeping gap
has implications for our ability to either assess the effectiveness of the
OIA against its original purpose, or to review it in the context of government
information policy.
The study can be found at
http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/asroberts/foi/library/clemens.pdf
And certainly highlights the need for such information to be gathered, if
nothing else!
Perhaps e-govt, public records office, or the Information Commissioner could
come up with some standard protocols that we can all follow on this?
Adam Pope
; >-- Original Message --
; >Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:25:46 +0000
; >Reply-To: Phil Bradshaw <[log in to unmask]>
; >From: Phil Bradshaw <[log in to unmask]>
; >Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request monitoring
; >To: [log in to unmask]
; >
; >
; >We are very early days in developing our processes, but there is a clear
; >feeling that, for the reasons Ben outlines (and because of the duty to
; >advise and assist) we will concentrate our monitoring on those occasions
; >when we do not (e.g. because of an exemption claim) , or cannot (e.g.
; >because we cannot find the information !) comply with a request.
; >
; >Monitoring ALL requests for information is clearly not a viable option
Adam Pope
www.adampope.net
-----__0 Adam Pope
---_'\<_ 07748576211
--(*)/(*) London
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