FOI reform bill to receive second Commons reading today

A bill to amend the UK's Freedom of Information Act will receive its second reading in the House of Commons today.

The bill, proposed by Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake, would introduce "four simple measures" to "strengthen FOI legislation, not emasculate it".

Key to the amendments is a limit on the time allowed for public authorities to respond to requests that involved "consideration of the public interest".

The proposed changes also include removing provisions that allow government ministers to overrule decisions by the Information Commissioner and Information Tribunal and altering the definition of public authorities to include some publicly-owned companies.

"The exercise of the ministerial veto introduces a veil of secrecy and affords an opportunity for arguments in favour of the public interest to be dismissed out of hand. Furthermore, its deployment sets a dangerous precedent and paints a worrying picture of a disdainful relationship between Government and the electorate," says Brake in the Hansard report of the first reading of the bill in September.

The bill responds to alleged "delaying tactics" used by public authorities when handling FOI requests, says Brake in Hansard.

"In 2009, 1,551 requests to central Government Departments and other monitored bodies were subject to an extension beyond the 20-working-days period, so that the issue of whether information should be disclosed on public interest grounds could be considered. That is allowed, as public authorities can use whatever additional time is "reasonable in the circumstances" to consider the Act's public interest test ... If the bill is introduced, all those requests, totalling more than 500, would receive a response in fewer than 40 days," he says.

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