As reported by the Newspaper Society: One on new restrictions proposed by the Government which the NS, the local press and other organisations have already strongly opposed and another on a revised code of practice to make sure private companies carrying out public functions have FOI requirements in their contracts. The NS has always campaigned for statutory FOI rights to guarantee access to such information.
Asked by Lindsay Roy MP what benefits have accrued to the Government and citizens from the implementation of the Act, and when does the Minister plan to extend its scope further, the Justice Minister replied: “We intend to extend it further as soon as is practical. One specific issue that I hope will be of interest to the hon. Gentleman - as it is to colleagues of his, including those who have come to see me about it - is that we intend to publish a revised code of practice to make sure that private companies that carry out public functions have freedom of information requirements in their contracts and go further than that. We hope that that will be in place by the end of this year.”
He added that: “There has been good progress in extending the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act because the coalition Government pledged to extend its scope to provide greater transparency. We extended it in 2010 to academies, in 2011 to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, and last year to 100 companies wholly owned by more than one public authority.
“The next item on the agenda is to do with Network Rail, and we are awaiting a view from the Department for Transport as to whether it thinks it would be appropriate for that to be implemented this year."
However, when Mark Harper MP suggested that: "There is one area where the Minister should perhaps look at narrowing the scope of the Act, because my understanding is that requests can be made by anybody anywhere on the face of the earth; they do not have to be British citizens. It is not the role of the British Government to be a taxpayer-funded research service for anyone on the globe. May I suggest that he narrow the scope to those for whom the Government work -citizens of our country?"
Simon Hughes replied: "I well understand my hon. Friend’s point. There will be two consultations this year: first, on precisely such issues about the scope of the current legislation to make sure that it is not abused while we retain freedom of information as a principle of Government; and secondly, on extending it to other areas where we have not gone so far.”
The Campaign for Freedom of Information said in response: “The first of these consultations will confirm whether the Government is taking forward proposals to restrict the FOI Act. Its proposals were outlined in its response to the Justice Committee’s report on post-legislative scrutiny of the Act. The Campaign along with 76 other organisations has urged the Government to drop them.
“It’s not clear what issues will be covered by the second consultation. The Government is currently consulting a number of bodies that appear to have public functions with a view to designating them as public authorities under the legislation. But the critical development would be to bring contractors under the FoI Act in their own right, something the Government has so far resisted. The Government says if its ‘light touch approach’ fails it will consider other steps, including making contractors subject to the Act in their own right. We believe this should be top of the agenda in the forthcoming consultation.”
