Thursday, April 24, 2008
Freedom of Information Act - my first request
Well, I've been reading quite a few articles on the Freedom of Information Act recently and I've found some of the Freedom of Information Disclosure Logs completely fascinating. Not fascinating in the conventional sense like amazing scams being uncovered, news breaking disclosures of significant information, but quite to the contrary, the trivial, the mundane and sometimes the really rather interesting.
For instance on the FOI Disclosure log for HMRC formerly Customs & Excise, someone asked the number of Taxpayers in the UK with a total earned income in of £1 million or more
Number of individuals2 95% confidence interval3
1996/7 1,200 ± 300
1997/8 1,000 ± 300
1998/9 1,800 ± 350
1999/0 2,300 ± 300
2000/1 4,100 ± 450
2001/2 3,400
2002/3 2,800
2003/4 3,000
2004/5 3,600
2005/6 4,100
It is quite amazing just what the dot.com bubble really did for quite a number of people and how long it took to come to similar numbers in 2005/6.
Dangerous Thoughts
This got me to thinking and a tried to see if my local council had a disclosure log handy on their website. Google was certainly not my friend on this occasion and the council website did not have any indication that they publish the questions people ask. I did try my best to find it, but if they have published it I get the impression they are trying to hide it. Plenty of information about it, but is it really in keeping with the spirit of what the FOI Act 200o is all about.
So my first FOI request was of course to "request information about the FOI disclosure log" and to be fair to them my local council has replied very promptly and said they would "try to supply you with the information sought by no later than 23 May 2008." More ominously they said:
For instance on the FOI Disclosure log for HMRC formerly Customs & Excise, someone asked the number of Taxpayers in the UK with a total earned income in of £1 million or more
Number of individuals2 95% confidence interval3
1996/7 1,200 ± 300
1997/8 1,000 ± 300
1998/9 1,800 ± 350
1999/0 2,300 ± 300
2000/1 4,100 ± 450
2001/2 3,400
2002/3 2,800
2003/4 3,000
2004/5 3,600
2005/6 4,100
It is quite amazing just what the dot.com bubble really did for quite a number of people and how long it took to come to similar numbers in 2005/6.
Dangerous Thoughts
This got me to thinking and a tried to see if my local council had a disclosure log handy on their website. Google was certainly not my friend on this occasion and the council website did not have any indication that they publish the questions people ask. I did try my best to find it, but if they have published it I get the impression they are trying to hide it. Plenty of information about it, but is it really in keeping with the spirit of what the FOI Act 200o is all about.
So my first FOI request was of course to "request information about the FOI disclosure log" and to be fair to them my local council has replied very promptly and said they would "try to supply you with the information sought by no later than 23 May 2008." More ominously they said:
- "In some circumstances a request may be subject to a) the payment of a fee, or b) an exemption may apply preventing disclosure of the information. If this is the case with your request, I will let you know immediately.
Having had a bit of training about this in my job, I know they have to spend 20 hours on the request completely free of charge.
I wonder will they come up trumps and be open and true to the legislation or just pay lipservice and try to fob me off.
Watch this space.
