30 June 2006
Freedom of information legislation is proving useful and effective but more needs to be done to tackle delays in handling requests, senior backbench MPs said this week.
The Commons' constitutional affairs select committee examined how well the Act was working in practice during 2005 – its first year of operation.
Committee chair Alan Beith said FoI legislation had led to some valuable and significant information coming into the public domain.
But he added: 'Our FoI legislation can only be as good as the quality of the records management it gives us access to, and only if people can get access to the information in a timely way.
'Long delays in accessing information or having complaints resolved go against both the spirit and the letter of the Act, and must be resolved. Records management, and particularly digital records management, must be improved.'
The committee's report, published on June 28, was also critical of the Information Commissioner's Office, whose job it is to regulate and enforce the Act. The committee noted that the commissioner frequently took a long time to investigate complaints, while the quality of some investigations was inadequate.
The MPs said they were not convinced that the ICO was sufficiently resourced and suggested the relationship with the Department for Constitutional Affairs was not working well.
'The committee sees a case for changing the reporting structure of the commissioner's office, making it accountable to and funded by Parliament, rather than the DCA,' Beith said.
An ICO spokeswoman said: 'Our own performance has improved since 2005; we are now closing more cases than we receive each month. We note the committee remains unconvinced that we have adequate resources.'
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