FOI Requests Face Crackdown: What Comms Pros Need To Do Now
Tony Blair brought in freedom of information requests but more than 20 years later Sir Keir Starmer’s government may be about to restrict data inquiries
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“You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop.”
That’s how then Prime minister Tony Blair admonished himself for introducing laws 20 years ago allowing members of the public to make freedom of information requests of the government and public bodies.
The legislation was designed to allow transparency in public decision making but Blair quickly felt it made frank, private discussions in government more difficult – and had become a weapon for critics and journalists.
He is of course right on that last point. It is part of the (entirely legitimate) armoury for journalists to get inside government, councils, the myriad of quangos and public bodies that spend taxpayers money for good or bad.
And as my colleague Steph explains in her essential guide to making FOI requests, it can generate a huge amount of great data that is of genuine public interest.
But what Blair introduced and then regretted, the current Labour government are looking to effectively curtail, according to a report by the Financial Times.
Rules currently allow authorities to refuse requests on cost grounds if they believe researching the answer will go over £600 for government or £450 for public bodies (those limits, by the way, have never been increased for inflation one estimate suggests if they had been inflation-linked, the £600 government limit would now be roughly £1,097, and the £450 limit would be over £820).
