Campaigners draft bill applying FOI to housing associations, contractors

The Campaign for Freedom of Information has drafted a Bill designed to bring housing associations, private contractors providing public services, and Local Safeguarding Children Boards under the Freedom of Information Act.

The group said housing associations were not subject to FOIA and could refuse to answer requests about fire risks, safety problems, eviction policies, waiting lists and other matters.

It cited a number of examples of requests for information which housing authorities had refused. These included:

• the cause of a fire in a housing association flat, requested by a neighbouring tenant;
• whether potentially toxic lead pipes were used for the water supply to a property;
• the number of repossession orders served since the ‘bedroom tax’ came into force, and the number of those tenants who had no arrears before that date;
• the circumstances in which tenants have been given permission to sublet and action taken against those subletting without permission;
• the job description of the housing association’s Head of Governance.

Such information was routinely disclosed by local authorities in response to FOI requests, the CFOI argued.

The group said most of the requests for information had referred to FOIA. “This prompted many housing associations to point out that the Act did not apply to them. This would not have prevented them releasing information voluntarily and the fact that they didn’t do so is revealing.”

The CFOI said: “In theory housing associations may be obliged to answer requests for environmental information under the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR). This might provide a right to information about fire safety decisions, such as those that led to Grenfell Tower disaster.

“But while the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has ruled that housing associations in Northern Ireland are subject to the EIR but has made no such rulings in relation to English and Welsh housing associations, where the legal context is slightly different.

“In a number of cases it has dealt with informally it has concluded that the particular English housing associations concerned were not subject to the EIR. This uncertainty means that bringing housing associations under the FOI Act is the only way of ensuring that their decisions on fire safety and other critical issues are subject to scrutiny.”

The group noted how the coalition government had promised to consult about extending FOI to housing associations in 2011 but did not do so. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on bringing housing associations under the Scottish FOI Act.

The CFOI said its Freedom of Information (Contractors Etc) Bill, which can be viewed here, would also allow the public to see information held by contractors about public services they provide including social care, health, public transport, parking enforcement, school inspections and privately run prisons.

“Information held by a contractor is only available under FOI where the contract entitles the public authority concerned to obtain that information from the contractor. Where the contract does not, the information is not accessible under FOI,” it said.

Again, the CFOI cited a number of examples of contractor-held information that had been refused under FOI. These included:

• The number of complaints from the public against court security officers provided by G4S and the number of officers charged with offences.
• The value of penalty fares issued on the London Overground and Docklands Light Railway by private sector inspectors.
• The costs of bringing TV licensing prosecutions, which is held by Capita and not known to the BBC.
• Whistleblowing policies applying to Virgin Care staff providing NHS services.
• The number of employees providing outsourced services for Brent Council employed on ‘zero hours’ contracts.

The bill would require contractors to supply authorities with information to answer FOI requests regardless of what the contract says, the CFOI said. “Public authorities would then be able and required to answer FOI requests made to them for information about their contracted out services as well as those which they provide directly.”

In relation to Local Safeguarding Children Boards, the CFOI said FOI requests to those bodies for information about a safeguarding board’s work were refused.

“The information is said to be held purely on behalf of the board itself and not used for the authority’s own purposes,” it noted.

“Bringing safeguarding boards under FOI would allow more access to information about their work to deal with child abuse, domestic violence, female genital mutilation and the protection of children from extremism.”