Monthly Archives: June 2011

FOI wakes up the dead

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Zombies in Leicester

It started with a simple question to a local council. A few paragraphs to the bureaucrats. It was a strange question, surely, but what happened next came straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Hundreds of zombies came to the streets. Their faces wan with foundation powder, dark circles hinging under their eyes, induced by eye-shadow. Red stage make-up dripping like blood from their cheek bones.

They were not there to eat people’s brains like regular zombies do. These living-dead had arrived to evaluate Leicester city’s contingency plans.

What brought them out on the streets was a Freedom of Information request sent to Leicester City Council by “a concerned citizen,” also known as Robert Ainsley, and identified by The Leicester Mercury  as 26-year-old politics graduate James Dixon.

“Can you please let us know what provisions you have in place in the event of a zombie invasion?” he wrote. “Having watched several films it is clear that preparation for such an event is poor and one that councils throughout the kingdom must prepare for.”

It was a joke, not the delusions of a gadfly, according to The Leicester Mercury, and the media ruckus that ensued was enough to wake people from their eternal rest.

But it really fair for the civil servants – legally binded to respond to non-vexatious FOI requests – who are now scratching their brains, trying to respond to this strange question? They probably weren’t prepared for the event of an FOI request on a zombie attack.

And how does it affect the FOI Act itself?

One one hand, it could serve to get more people acquainted with its existence who may start asking responsible questions.

In 2008, 86% of the UK population knew they had the legal right to access government information, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office. This may be the reason why the number of FOI requests to local authorities rose from 60,000 to 80,000 between 2005 and 2007, according to the Constitution Unit’s research.

On the other hand, the zombie request may also start a trend in which citizens ask their council questions like whether they are planning to build an airport for flying saucers or a school for alien children, just because this one was so much fun.

According to FOI request tracker WhatDoTheyKnow.com, nine new requests have been submitted on the topic of zombies.

But even that isn’t really a bad thing, as it may help oil the FOI machine. The Constitution Unit found that if the Act is not being used, the act can enter into stagnation: a minority of requests are answered and there are more delays.

The Leicester council hasn’t responded to Ainsley’s request yet, but Leicester’s head of information governance, Lynn Wyeth spoke to local radio and the BBC about the question.

She could have complained about the amount of work created by someone who just wanted to have a good laugh. Instead, she responded gracefully.

“To you it might seem frivolous and a waste of time… but to different people it actually means something,”she said. “Everybody has their own interests and their own reasons for asking these questions.”

Bristol City Council took it one step further and responded to a copycat FOI request with an actual, “top secret” zombie contingency plan. You can look at it here if you don’t believe me.

But maybe we are having too much fun. The FOI Man offers a more sobering perspective from the point of view of an official dealing with the Act on a regular basis.

Though he found it amusing at first, he soon came to the conclusion that it is a misguided use of FOI, and may make public officials who are already skeptical of the act, even more so.

My fear is that a combination of zombie requests, public sector spending cuts and lack of support for FOI at all levels in public authorities could seriously damage our right to access information in this country. As FOI Officers, we have a duty to promote FOI to our colleagues. But we can’t just keep repeating the same old answers in the hope that they will have a ‘road to Damascus’ conversion. The only way we can progress in instilling FOI as a culture in our organisations and our country is to listen to colleagues’ concerns.

FOI requests also cost a lot of money too £30.6 million pounds in total for the UK, according to the Constitution Unit’s calculations.

“We should acknowledge that some requests are a waste of resources (even if we can’t actually refuse them),” he wrote.

Having said all that, this may just be a one-off situation in which a “concerned citizen” decides to bring the FOI act to the fore for some good fun.

The media will soon forget about it (they may already have), but for some FOI enthusiasts it will remain an event in which a simple request for government documents turned into a lighthearted invasion of the living dead.

FOI LIVE 2011

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FOI Live 2011 had a great set of contributors and prompted some very interesting discussion about FOI, Open Data and transparency. A big thank you to everyone who came along and took part. We will upload the two keynote presentations as soon as possible.

It began with a keynote from Tim Kelsey, founder of Dr Foster and now advisor on transparency to the Cabinet Office. He outlined some of the aims and objectives of the new transparency reforms and highlighted some of the innovations elsewhere, such as the Miami 311 site or online banking. What initially seems new and unfamiliar very quickly becomes logical and second nature. He also recommended the blogger David Eaves to keep track of developments.

In the second keynote Deputy Information Commissioner Graham Smith outlined some of the important developments in FOI, pointing in particular to developments over personal information. He highlighted shifts in public attitudes, as well as technological change, and felt that FOI was bedding in. He agreed that FOI was becoming second nature, within a wider network of transparency changes.

The panel of requesters highlighted some of the difficulties of using FOI. This included inconsistency of response, denial that information is correct and delay. They also felt that better communication (specifically that FOI officers speak with them to help clarify what they want) may ease some of the problems on both sides.  What would they change if they could change one part of the law? The wish list included making authorities consider pro-active release on a subject after each request, ensuring the increasing number of (often arms length) bodies are covered, compulsory disclosure logs or making changes to the cultures in which some organisations worked.

The final discussion centred on the future of Open Data and FOI. The issues ranged from who was using the site data.gov.uk to the more personal use of data such as the public toilet locater. The main point that emerged was how data can and is used in a whole variety of ways. It is very early days, for government and the public, and issues remain over who uses it and the influence of the ‘digital divide’. It may be in the area of third party developments, such as openly local or timetric, where we will see the most interesting and useful, developments. There are a few Unit posts relating to Open Data with some interesting links here and here.

Videos

 

FOI and the politically empowered

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Here at the Unit we’re wrapping up a project on FOI and Parliament which looked at the use of FOI by MPs and peers. We’ve been asking:

  • Is FOI another tool in MPs’ arsenal?
  • Is it useful, and has it become part of the cut and thrust of politics?
  • Or, is it not being used?

After all, MPs already have great research tools, like Parliamentary Questions, access to the House of Commons Library and many NGOs working in the field who can provide them with information. Plus they are likely to get a more robust reply from ministerial letters than an ordinary member of the public (a reason their work for constituents is so valuable).

So why do any MPs make FOI requests? Examples from different parliamentarians provide us with some answers:

A key role of the parliamentarian is to hold public institutions to account, and our previous research finds that FOI helps increase accountability of institutions. Time will tell if FOI grows in popularity as an accountability tool among the elites who know how to manipulate and publicise information more than most. Our study finds that overcoming structural resourcing shortages may be the key to this.  The time and resource issues of FOI, compared with ‘instant’ PQs, cannot be easily overcome. FOI requests and their subsequent analysis takes much time, something that heavily effects FOI’s use by peers in the less professional and less well resourced House of Lords in particular. In New Zealand, it was the switch to a proportional voting system and a parliament with at least five political parties represented that saw FOI use increase as parliamentary competition did. Maybe an elected House of Lords could at least provide the competitive impetuous for wider use by peers. Though a cynic may say any increase in use by MPs will coincide when the tally of requests becomes another feature of They WorkForYou statistics…

Palin’s e-mails: why so bland?

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They waited nearly three years for boxes of what promised to be controversial and entertaining news fodder, straight from the fingertips of the U.S. vice-presidential candidate.

“Editors, bloggers and producers were doubtless rubbing their hands in glee on the expectation that the unfiltered thoughts of Sarah Palin as expressed in her email messages would be at least as idiotic as some of the unfiltered statements that come out of Sarah Palin’s mouth when she’s in front of a camera,” wrote L.A. Times’ Dan Turner.

What they got instead is a 24,000 pageload of mundane messages. No new revelations, not even material for a laugh.

The e-mails – or at least the ones the media has managed to sift through — are so boring it makes one wonder whether Sarah Palin, conscious that the messages could potentially be perused by the public, wrote them accordingly: free of gaffes, uninformed statements and controversy. (The Guardian has asked the public to help them sift through the e-mails)

She wouldn’t be the first politician to do so.

Some researchers claim the Freedom of Information Act – which the U.S. has had more than 40 years of getting used to –  has had a “chilling effect” on politicians in Sweden and Canada. Sanitising records or making important or controversial decisions in unrecorded oral discussions may be a logical result of politicians and staff being conscious of potential public scrutiny (a study by the Constitution Unit, showed UK politicians would rather keep good records than face any negative consequences, however.)

Palin is often ridiculed for lacking media saavy and being a teleprompter addict – but she may have just outsmarted us all.

The disclosure on Friday and Monday by the state of Alaska contains e-mails from her Yahoo account, as well as the state-related e-mail from her staff’s personal and work accounts.

Until now, the documents consist of correspondence with aides, nice words for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama,  e-mails showing annoyance about certain press coverage and a picture of Palin and her husband with an Elvis impersonator.

The e-mails spanning Palin’s first two years as governor were requested during the 2008 national elections, when she was Senator John McCain’s running mate, by citizens and news organisations such as the Associated Press. By now, her aspirations are one step further up the ladder as she toys with the prospect of being president.
Almost 2,300 pages were held back due to data protection issues, however.
“Who knows what juicy tidbits we might have found had the rest been available?” Turner wrote.
It may be that the good stuff was simply redacted or withheld. It may be that a golden nugget is hidden under the crease of a photocopied e-mail printout. Maybe Palin is simply not as interesting as people seem to  think — or she just knows how to avoid FOI.

What Does the Future Hold for FOI and Open Data?

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FOI Live 2011: Thursday 23rd June

University College London

www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/events/foilive-2011

There has been lots of discussion in the past few days about transparency and Open Data as government publishes full lists of who does what. This comes on top of debate and discussion about FOI and Open Data as local authorities and central government release all sorts of information from spending data to Zombie attacks. But what will it all mean? This year FOI Live 2011 at University College London will try and find out.

The speakers are now

  • Tim Kelsey, the UK government’s adviser on Transparency and Open Data, who will be speaking about the new transparency agenda.
  • Deputy Information Commissioner Graham Smith

The programme also includes

  • Chris Taggart of Open Data site Openly Local, Oliver Lendrum from the Ministry of Justice and Nicola Westmore from the Cabinet Office answering your questions on Open Data and the future of FOI
  • An interactive question and answer session with journalists and campaigners who use FOI including Paul Francis from the Kent Messenger, Martin Rosenbaum of the BBC, Matthew Sinclair from the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Maurice Frankel from the Campaign for Freedom of Information