written evidence from kent county council

8/2/2019 Written Evidence From Kent County Council

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Written evidence from Kent County Council

1. Does the Freedom of Information Act work effectively?

1.1 Yes on the whole but there is much scope for improvement.

1.2 Since 2005, Kent County Council has become more proactive at publishinginformation, not only because changes to legislation have required this, but also atits own volition. However, despite putting more information “out there”, the number ofrequests for information falling under the scope of FOIA (and EnvironmentalInformation Regulations 2004) has increased dramatically year-on-year from 504requests in 2005 to 1819 in 2011.

1.3 Sadly the resources to deal with these requests have not increased and there

is concern that the pressure that FOIA puts on local authorities that are alreadyunder budgetary constraints is diverting valuable resources away from arguablymore important council services such as social care, education and highways.

1.4 See KCC’s statistics which we voluntarily publish

https://shareweb.kent.gov.uk/Documents/council-and-democracy/disclosure-log/Requests%20for%20information%20-%20year-by-year%20comparison%20statistics.pdf

1.5 The increase in requests despite making more information readily accessibleleads us to three conclusions:

1. People are more aware of their rights

2. We are not publishing the “right” information (i.e.; what people want to see)

3. People are lazy and it is easier to ask than conduct research themselves

1.6 A good example of this is the mandatory publishing of transactions in excessof £500 which KCC has been doing since September 2010. Due to the constraints ofKCC’s financial database which was not designed for this purpose (KCC hasn’t gotthe spare £millions to replace or update), it costs approximately £120 a month plusdozens of hours of officer time to redact and prepare data for publication. Given that

in the 16 months since this information has been published on our website, therehave only been 3000 visits to this webpage and this figure includes internal as wellas external hits, it is questionable whether publishing this information is actuallyvalue for money as there clearly isn’t the demand that the Department forCommunities anticipated.

2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Freedom of InformationAct?

Strengths

2.1 The Act has definitely forced traditionally secretive cultures to become moretransparent and public authorities have been forced to accept that they are going to



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be subject to scrutiny and rightly so. Within KCC, there is certainly more awarenessof the need for openness and accountability and there is an acceptance that nolonger can business be conducted “behind closed doors”. The exposure of M.P.s'expenses is a good example of the strength of the Act

2.2 The Act has also obliged public authorities to “clean up their act” and payattention to their procedures and processes for example how records are managed,website design, basically improve their housekeeping.

Weaknesses

2.3 The Act is open to abuse in that commercial companies use it to gleaninformation free of charge at the taxpayers’ expense which they will then use for theirown profit.

2.4 Journalists and the Media also use the Act as a “fishing expedition” forpotential stories, in effect utilising valuable council resources to do their research forthem. Annoyingly, the information provided to the Media is often misrepresented ortaken out of context to “sensationalise” and sell news.

2.5 The Act has become an additional weapon in the arsenal of the vexatious andrepeat complainers who having exhausted the complaints process, then use FOIA asan alternative route of communications into the authority.

2.6 The Act does not facilitate being able to distinguish between the genuinerequests and those that seemingly have no value, but can not be classed asvexatious. See examplehttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/red_pens#outgoing-175182

3. Is the Freedom of Information Act operating in the way that it wasintended to?

3.1 Probably not as there was no way that legislation could anticipate demand,how the Act could be used and the strain it would put on resources in an alreadystretched public sector.

3.2 Proactive publication has also created problems for KCC. For example,voluntarily publishing FOI performance statistics (which Local Government is notcurrently obliged to do) highlighted to the Information Commissioner that KCC’s

compliance with statutory timescales was less than 85%. The ICO subjected KCC tothree-months’ monitoring and has obliged KCC to sign a formal undertaking, eventhough there had been no complaints from applicants about KCC’s (lack of)timeliness.

4. The Way Forward

4.1 Listed below are some changes to the Act that if implemented mightcircumvent some of the difficulties that certainly KCC experiences in trying toachieve compliance with the Act.

4.2 The Act should be more prescriptive about cost limits. The MoJ should review

what can be included in the time limit when assessing whether complying with therequest would exceed the appropriate limit or not.



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4.3 Reading information to deliberate exemptions and redacting exemptinformation should be included in the £450/18 hours and if not (as is at present) thetime limit should be reduced. I am sure the example quoted on pages 52 & 53 (187 – 188) of the report is not an isolated incident! 4.4 The Act should be more prescriptive about information that should bepublished by stipulating specific information that must be included in a publicationscheme (or its replacement subject to the publication scheme review). This will makea certain level of transparency, such as that outlined in The Code of RecommendedPractice for Local Authorities on Data Transparency, a statutory requirement andthere can be no argument about what is expected of public authorities. 4.5 There should be some way of distinguishing between applicants who will profitfrom information collated at local authorities’ expense (commercial companies) and“genuine” requests.

4.6 There should also be a mechanism or test to identify and reject “time wastingrequests” such as “What varieties/types of biscuits were bought by KCC betweenApril 2010 - April 2011?” Perhaps the Act should include guidance to applicants onthings to consider before submitting a request? If the information requested is to adegree of detail that they would not hold themselves on a household level?

4.7 The introduction of a (nominal?) fee (rather like subject access requests undersection 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998) may deter “frivolous” requests or the“round robin” requests from commercial companies, journalists and the media.

4.8 If the Act is tightened and sharpened and less ambiguous, then theInformation Commissioner should have greater enforcement powers. Perhaps theintroduction of a system of fines, akin to those that can be deployed for DataProtection breaches, should be introduced?

February 2012