FOI Britain is still 'suppressed and secretive' 10 years on

The Freedom of Information Act is now 10 years old, so how has it impacted British journalism and how are the institutions subject to it dealing with requests?

Campaigner Heather Brooke said public bodies should not feel obstructed by FOI, but treat it as a legitimate way of releasing information.

Speaking at a Media Society debate to mark the 10 year anniversary of the FOI Act, Brooke said: ”The danger... when it's such a shut down, suppressed, secretive system, is that stories still need to come out".

FOI is a "safeguarding of information", she explained, pointing to the procedure that needs to be followed and its exemptions.

She said information coming into public domain in Britain "has such a spin on it because it's always coming from a leak generally", and could serve the agenda of the person who leaked it.

FOI "gives us an objective type of news that we just currently don't have access to," she explained.

Tom Felle, acting director, interactive and newspaper journalism, City University London, said the culture around information in the public domain has not changed.

Some local governments say they are flooded by requests from local media, for example.

But the information subject to those requests does not need to fall under FOI, said Felle, pointing to a "culture where an information officer or a press officer would simply give the information".

FOI commissioner Chris Graham, also on the panel, said 70 per cent of appeals to his office were dealt with within three months or less, and 92 per cent were concluded within six months.

"It's working pretty well, but it's up to you as users of the Freedom of Information act to keep pushing," he told the audience at City University.

"The legislation is there to make sure that what ought to be in the public domain is in the public domain."

BBC journalist and freedom of information specialist Martin Rosenbaum, also on the panel, said the problem with FOI is that "in some ways there still is a lot of delay in the system".

"I also worry about this, that really the attitude that we've now taken towards [FOI] is one of relief precisely because it's not as bad as it used to be," he explained.

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