In the seven years since it came into force, the act has shed light on data the authorities did not choose to reveal
Just how much information can be free? As parliament prepares to consider reforming the Freedom of Information Act, a Ministry of Justice study discovered that many government departments and authorities are finding FOI increasingly onerous. They resent the time spent considering requests and redacting documents and complain that the in-tray had grown by as much as a quarter in the past year. A small fee, they suggest, might deter members of the public from making too many requests – and prevent journalists who are too often "fishing" for a story, usually a negative one. The now-retired cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has claimed that FOI inhibits frank discussion between ministers and civil servants. Yet the vast majority of requests have nothing to do with Sir Gus's sofa briefings.
In 2009, for example, the Guardian reporter Ian Cobain asked the Crown Prosecution Service for the documents relating to Nick Griffin's prosecution for publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred. Griffin, who later became leader of the British National party, was convicted in 1998. The CPS refused on the grounds that the documents were Griffin's "sensitive personal data". The Guardian complained to the information commissioner. The CPS then (wrongly) cited another ground for exemption, but the ICO agreed the data was indeed sensitive and could not be disclosed. After an appeal to the Information Tribunal, the CPS finally produced a schedule of the material. It became clear that a significant amount of it was not "personal" at all – such as articles that Griffin had published. Earlier this month, the tribunal declared that most of the files should be released, and said it was "very odd" that in an open society the CPS would try to withhold, for example, the indictment on which he was convicted. FOI is not free, and civil servants will always regard it as burdensome (though, as the UCL Constitution Unit points out, most of them are far too busy to let the act inhibit their work). And the government has become more proactive about publishing data it is willing to make public.
However, in the seven years since it came into force, the act has shed light on data the authorities did not choose to reveal. FOI enabled the Guardian to uncover details of the wildly varying death rates after vascular surgery, and the number of Afghan civilians killed by British forces in Afghanistan. The tribunal affirmed its importance in facilitating investigative journalism. At a time when serious, well-sourced reporting is at a premium, undermining FOI would be a retrograde step. The CPS, meanwhile, has still not released its files on Griffin.