Week 8 Media Law - Freedom of Information Act 2000

To begin with I'll state the basic principle of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

'Any person making a request for information from a public authority is entitled;

a) to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and
(b) if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.'

The public authorities must disclose information without any financial charge for finding or collating it, if meeting the request costs the public authority no more than £600 or £450. The introduction of the Act has given journalists and researchers great success. There are four disclosures which have been prompted by regional and local journalists when using the Act. These are;
- the number of under 16's requiring treatment for drug problems and alcohol-related illness at a local hospital,
- the number of police arrests for alleged crimes,
- How many crimes reported to police are given no publicity by the police - including alleged sexual assaults, and
- how many children have been excluded from local schools.

BBC journalists have prompted the disclosures regarding relations that;
- only two councils had met goverment targets on the welfare of children in council care,
- councils in the South of England had made the same planning procedure mistake 68 times in relation to moblie phone masts, and
- elderly residents of a nursing home allegedly suffered verbal and physical abuse.

For other stories to which journalists have written from the use of the Act visit, http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/index.shtml

A few examples of public authorities under the 2000 Act are;
- National government department and ministries
- The House of Commons
- The armed forces
- Local government authorities
- National park authorities
- Universities, colleges and schools
- The NHS
- Various advisory councils, and regulatory bodies with statutory powers.

The UK's security and intelligence agencies are not covered by the FOI Act 2000. These included the MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and are all exempt from the Act. This means they do not have to repsond to FOI requests. In addition to this, courts and tribunals are not covered by the Act.

If a public authority receives a request for information, it must normally make a repsonse within 20 working days, either supplying the information or explaining why it cannot be supplied. The public authority may not hold the information, or the request would exceed the cost limits for the provision of free information, or the information is covered by exemptions under the Act, and therefore need not be supplied. In any of these instances, the public authority must communicate these restrictions.

Under s48 of the FOIA, information is defined as 'information recorded in any form'. The Act does not require a public authority to gather information it does not already have.

The Act allows authorities to refuse to supply information on various grounds. These are known as exemptions. The Information Commissioner's Office website has helpful guidance on these to which it enables searches of his decisions on their use categorised usefully by which exemption was claimed.
Absolute exmptions are whereby the public authority does not have to give any reason for nt disclosing the information, beyond stating that the exemption applies because of the nature of the information. Absolute exemptions include; information reasonably accessible by other means, information supplied to the public authority by or relating to bodies dealing with security matters, court records, personal information and information provided to the authority in confidence by another party.
Qualified exemption means that if the public authority decides not to supply the information in these categories, it must give reasons, showing how it has applied the 'public interest test' to justify its refusal to provide information. Information can be withheld if the public interest in withholding the information is greater than the public interest in releasing it.
Public authorities should disclose information if it has the following factors;
- Furthering the understanding and participation in the public debate of issues of the day,
- Promoting accountability and transparency by public authorities for decisions taken by them,
- Promoting accountability and transparency in the spending of public money,
- Allowing individuals and companies to understand decisions made by public authorities affecting their lives, and
- Bringing to light information affecting public health and safety.

A disadvantage of the FOIA 2000 is that there is no time limit on how long the public authorities have to apply the public interest test. This may delay the disclosure of any information.

If the public authority fail to produce the information within 20 working days, or fail any contact what so ever, the requester can ask the authority to conduct an 'internal review' into such failure or refusal.

The BBC, Channel 4 and S4C were made subject to the FOI Act because they are public service broadcasters. The Act states that disclosure provisions only apply to information they hold 'for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature'. By protection journalistic material held by these broadcast institutions, the Act does not require them to accept;
- Requests attempting to reveal their journalists' confidential sources, or
- Requests by rival news organisations, or by the subjects of journalistic investigations, attempting to secure disclosure of material gathered in a journalistic investigation, including any footage/audio not broadcast.