No charade
If you are familiar with the FOI process, you will know that if you're not happy with the response to a freedom of information request, you can ask for the decision to be reviewed by the public authority involved.
Now, I know some cynics dismiss this as a pointless charade which tends to rubber-stamp the original decision. However, experience shows nothing could be further from the truth.
Take this example. My colleague Nicola Beckford asked the Foreign Office for some information relating to threats to British assets in Venezuala. She was told that it was all excluded from disclosure under various exemptions, such as of the which protects international relations and which protects commercial interests.
She then asked for an internal review and was told the review had overruled the initial decision on the following points:
• "In four cases where section 27 was applied to material, this internal review has concluded that material was not relevant to your request."
• "Conversely, one document judged to have been not relevant to your request in the original assessment, has been judged to be relevant but exempt under section 27."
• "An extract from one document exempt under section 27 and 43 has been judged, for that extract only, to be exempt under section 35(1)(a), the formulation of government policy and communication between Ministers 35(1)(b), rather than 27 or 43."
But did the review actually decide to release any information? Er, no. Still, maybe they'll get the choice of exemptions right in the first place next time.
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°ä´Ç³¾³¾±ð²Ô³Ù²õÌýÌý Post your comment
After reading the bbc's responses to many requests under the foi (they seem to not have to answer any question that would take more than 2 days to compile) it seems funny that you then complain about the fo's equally restricting approach to the freedom of information.
It seems both organisations use loopholes and such to avoid giving away any information they dont want the public at large to be informed with.
Keep up the good? work