Civil servants divided over FOI response
New revelations under freedom of information demonstrate the widely varying approaches that different civil servants have towards openness and releasing documents.
A range of official attitudes is illustrated in papers disclosed recently by the Cabinet Office to , an international authority on FOI based at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.
In 2005 Prof Roberts had asked the government for details of FOI applications referred to the Cabinet Office by the "" at what was then the Department for Constitutional Affairs - these would be particularly difficult, complex or sensitive cases.
His first request was answered in early 2005 by the Histories, Openness and Records Unit (HORU) of the Cabinet Office, which provided material he wanted. But when he then made another application for later data, things got more difficult.
Some officials outside HORU weren't happy about answering Prof Roberts, because his request was a "meta-request" - a request about the handling of other FOI requests.
The HORU official who initially provided him with information later wrote a memo adopting a rather confessional tone:
DCA is the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which has become the Ministry of Justice. TSol refers to the , the government's lawyers.
While some other parts of Whitehall wanted to reject meta-requests under section 36 of the FOI Act following a "public interest balancing test" (PIBT), in June 2005 HORU still appeared willing to respond positively to Prof Roberts and another requester who wanted details of HORU cases.
But according to a HORU briefing note, 10 Downing St had a different viewpoint.
In due course it was decided not to release the requested material. But this left some officials struggling with how to justify to Prof Roberts that giving him the information he wanted would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs.
Nevertheless the plan to keep the material secret was confirmed and presented for ministerial approval.
All this has now been revealed thanks to a further FOI request from Prof Roberts about the treatment of his meta-request - in other words, what could be called a meta-meta-request. The Cabinet Office at first refused to disclose this material but then did so after , which followed an that he should also be given the case information he was seeking.
Prof Roberts says:
"For several years, officials in central government denied that the central clearance process caused unnecessary delay, or did anything other that assure consistent responses to FOI requests. Here is a case in which top-level coordination produced substantial delays. The documents suggest that the process also gave No 10 the opportunity to push for non-disclosure even though the officials immediately responsible could not see a risk of harm."
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