Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act (2000) gives the public, (Not just Journalists) the legal right to access information held by most public authorities which is not otherwise readily available to them. This mean that anyone is entitled to request information from a public body (approx 130,000 in total), subject to certain exemptions:

1.       Absolute - this is where information is absolutely exempt from being disclosed, for instance security services or court records, they have no duty to confirm or deny any information that exists. This is information which relates to the courts and/ or the defence of this country.

2.       Qualified - ministerial communication and commercial confidentiality, such as if it makes a qualified body look bad. However, if the information is deemed to be within 'Public Interest' then it should be disclosed.

Public interest is where something is in the interest of the public for instance health and safety not merely interesting to the public.

E.g. How many NHS nurses have criminal convictions? - This is public interest.

How many NHS nurses are divorced? - This is merely of interest

The Government wants to be seen as legitimate, promoting transparency and accountability by offering the public the chance to further their understanding of public issues. Therefore, bring to light any information that may affect public health and public safety; both of which are of public interest.

There are around 100,000 requests made a year, costing around £34m, with only 12% of the requests coming from Journalists. Anyone can make a request, and it doesn't have to apply to just paper files, it can include information on video, tape or electronically too.

Making a request is simple, either through the website 'WhatDoTheyKnow?' or simply by emailing the public authority. You can email about almost anything without having to provide them with a reason as to why you want to know and the best thing is that it is free.     
By law the public body must reply to you within 20 working days, this is around four weeks. It is important particularly if you are working on a news story to plan ahead.
If the authority is debating whether or not your request is within the public interest they can take 40 days to consider it, so bare this in mind when planning ahead for potential news stories.

If your FOI request is declined then you have the right to bring it to the attention of an Internal Review- Information Commissioner- Information Tribunal- High Court e.g. Heather Brooke

There are also laws in place to protect our information, including:

The Data Protection Act which works to protect information away from public domain with respect to personal data. All the information that is held about us is confidential and stops others obtaining the information. The only people entitled to gain access to information about yourself, is you, especially if you feel they hold any incorrect information about yourself.                

The Official Secrets Act protects sensitive material and documents held relating to the defence of this country, for example the Ministry of Defence.           

There is a story in the news today concerning confidentiality and the NHS.  The Independent reported that: ‘’Patient confidentiality ‘to be breached by police’: NHS database to be made available to investigators, claims former shadow Home Secretary David Davis’’.

FOI was a new labour policy introduced by Tony Blair in 2005. At the time of the introduction, Blair deemed it to be a great idea, considering that journalists could gain access to the Conservative ‘dodgy’ dealings during power. However, after a period of time passed with Labour in power, the roles soon reversed and he regretted introducing the act. He soon realised that it was rarely used by 'the people' instead it was used mainly by journalists trying to uncover new material to be exposed in the media. Additionally he felt it was dangerous, because the government needed to discuss issues "with a reasonable level of confidentiality".       

In the future, under the coalition Government a review of the FOIA may be considered to essentially limit people from making too many requests where they become too 'burdensome', particularly Journalists. They could lower the limits on costs, leading to many more requests being refused, further to this, altering other factors such as time take to release information or not in to the cost calculations. Press organisations and freedom of speech campaigners have been very critical of these plans.