LGA attacks "frivolous, commercially or research driven" FOI requests

Local authorities are concerned about the increasing misuse of the Freedom of Information Act “by those seeking to make a profit for their business and those passing on the burden of their research on councils or making frivolous requests”, the Local Government Association has said.

In its submission to a call for evidence from the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information, the LGA argued that applicants should be required to set out the public interest in requesting the information, “with the provision that an authority is not obliged to respond if this information is not clearly set out”.

The aim of this, the Association said, would be to eliminate “the number of frivolous, commercially or research driven requests”.

The LGA added that the consideration of exemptions could be time consuming and complex, and suggested that misuse of the Act created “significant additional administration costs for local authorities, at a time of reduced resources and severe budgetary constraints”.

Arguing that there needed to be change to the FOI legislation “whilst protecting the right to reasonable access to information by citizens”, the LGA also proposed:

• Providing protection of sensitive information by making Section 36 a class-based exemption similar to Section 35 (“which means there is no need to show any harm in order to engage the exemption”) and removing the requirement for a determination of the application by a “qualified person”.
• Preserving a safe space for public bodies to consider policy options in private, comparable to that currently afforded to central government (i.e. extension of Section 35 to public bodies);
• Amending Section 11 (1) (a) when considering the means of communicating the requests to the applicant by deleting the following ….”or in another form acceptable to the applicant.”

The Association also put forward a number of proposed changes in relation to charging. In relation to the Fees Regulations 2004 it called for:

• Inclusion within the activities that can be taken into account when estimating the cost of compliance under regulation 7, of redacting information to be excluded from disclosure such as personal data and sensitive commercial information.
• Amendment of the current provision in Section 12 (4) to enable authorities to aggregate requests from the same or different persons made at the same or different times under the ‘appropriate limit’ to eliminate splitting requests.
• A reduction in the appropriate limit to eight hours (equivalent to one day) from 18 hours beyond which the applicant should be required to pay.
• An increase in the hourly rate, “which has not been amended for 10 years”, to bring it in line with current costs.

The LGA insisted that local government was already one of the most transparent parts of the public sector, and that both it and its member councils were committed to the principles of openness and transparency.

“Local authorities recognise that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and its amendments serve an important function in respect of promoting the transparency and accountability of public bodies,” its submission said.

The Association added that since the introduction in 2005 of the Freedom of Information Act, there had been a significant increase in the amount of information published through the Local Government Transparency Code and the openness agenda.

“At the same time Revenue Support Grant funding has reduced by some 40%,” the LGA noted.

A number of councils also submitted responses to the Independent Commission’s call for evidence.

Overall, the Commission has received more than 30,000 submissions from a wide range of organisations as well as individuals. The responses can be viewed here.