02 June 2006
Core Whitehall departments struggled to match the performance of other central government bodies in getting to grips with the Freedom of Information Act, according to recent figures.
Central government received almost 40,000 FoI requests in 2005. In the first quarter of the year, departments were answering just 64% of requests within the standard deadline of 20 working days, compared with 77% in other central government bodies such as the Health and Safety Executive and the Charity Commission.
This gap subsequently narrowed to six percentage points as the year wore on.
The figures, contained in the Department for Constitutional Affairs' Freedom of Information annual report published last week, also showed that departments met fewer eligible requests compared with other monitored bodies.
In the final quarter of 2005, Whitehall departments answered just 60% of resolvable requests, compared with 75% that were granted by other bodies. The report suggested this difference could be explained because of the different functions the organisations performed.
'Departments of state will typically be more likely than other bodies to hold particularly sensitive information which will be exempt from release under the Act,' the report states.
Commenting on the figures, a spokeswoman for the Information Commissioner's Office said the report demonstrated that governmental culture was starting to change.
'There is still a long way to go but we are encouraged by the range and significant number of disclosures we have seen so far,' she told Public Finance. 'We are confident that further progress will be made in the year ahead.'
Speaking on the day the FoI report was published, Constitutional Affairs Secretary Lord Falconer said the UK had done well in terms of release rates, achieving levels comparable with other countries.
'During the past year, we have seen new information never previously released, for example information about the salaries of senior government officials,' he said.
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