With less than 10 weeks to go before the deadline for the Act,
some IT departments are realising that neither they nor their
organisations are ready
The Freedom of Information Act, which comes into force on 1 of
January 2005, will have profound implications for the IT
departments of every public sector body in the UK.
By then all UK public sector organisations must supply information
requested by the public within 20 working days, regardless of how
or where they store their data.
For many public sector organisations, meeting this requirement is
going to mean investing in IT systems capable of managing documents
and processing requests from the public.
But with less than 10 weeks to go, there are growing concerns that
many organisations, and local authorities in particular, will be
unprepared when information requests start to arrive.
In a survey of 100 public sector IT executives, largely drawn from
local government, 78% of respondents said they believe their
organisations will not be able to fully comply with the Act by the
1 January deadline.
With the deadline for compliance looming, 60% claimed their senior
managers still did not understand the implications of the Act. The
same number said their organisations are not committed to putting
in IT systems to meet compliance.
"There is going to be large-scale non-compliance on 1 January,"
said Joan Fennelly, a business consultant at change management
consultancy Partners for Change which commissioned the
survey.
Last week, Peter Chalk, vice-chairman of the Local Government
Association, admitted to MPs that local authorities could struggle
to meet the 20-day deadline.
Giving evidence to the constitutional affairs committee, he said
many councils were delaying investments in document management
systems until they knew the volume of the requests they will have
to deal with.
"There will be a lot of manual searching to start with, but as we
see the number of enquiries, we will be putting in more electronic
methods. Where there is manual retrieval, I think we will face some
problems. In the early days, the 20 days may be hard to achieve,"
said Chalk.
He urged the government to take a flexible approach to the 20-day
deadline, and said that some flexibility would be better than local
authorities simply finding they do not have the resources to deal
with the Act on 1 January.
Lydia Pollard, e-government strategic adviser for the Improvement
and Development Agency, which promotes local government best
practice, agreed that some local authorities might be left
struggling.
"If there are complex enquiries which require information from
several different sources, I think they may struggle to meet the 20
days," she said.
The failure for local authorities to be prepared is a reflection of
the competing and conflicting demands from government over the past
four years, said Socitm Consulting, the consulting arm of local
authority IT directors' group the Society of IT Management.
Andrea Simmons, principal consultant at Socitm, said in practice
local authorities have been too busy complying with rafts of other
government initiatives to think about the Freedom of Information
Act.
"It is mainly because of the lack of joined-up government policy.
The constant drive from central government to issue initiatives in
a completely un-coordinated way means that money is spent in silos.
So when you need to know where everything is across a local
authority, it becomes very difficult," she said.
The problem has been exacerbated by the unwillingness of central
government to provide local authorities with extra funding to
prepare for the Freedom of Information Act, Socitm Consulting
said.
Even today, many of the government's requirements for freedom of
information have yet to be resolved. There is still no clear
message, for instance, on the fees local authorities will be able
to charge for information requests.
"It has an impact on our ability to say that if we invest this
amount of money in a technology system we can make some money by
charging it back," said Simmons.
As a result of conflicting priorities, freedom of information has
never figured high on the to-do list of local authority chief
executives, said Fennelly.
"I have visited customers the length and breadth of the country,
both large and small. Responsibility for freedom of information is
being devolved down the organisation, typically three to five
layers down from the top," she said. Although they may have strong
management ability, "They do not necessarily have the skills or the
clout to make things happen," Simmons added.
Technical solutions range from using Adobe Acrobat to manage
requests to full SAP systems.
Some local authorities have been able to bolt on freedom of
information functions to document management systems and customer
relationship management systems that have already been installed
for other purposes.
But for many IT departments, freedom of information could be a
no-win situation. More than half the IT executives surveyed
believed that the IT department would be left to carry the can if
organisations fail to meet the deadline, even if the reason for
non-compliance was outside their control.
What complying with the Act will mean for
councils
The Freedom of Information Act comes into force on 1 January
2005. It requires public sector bodies, including central
government departments, local government, the NHS, schools and the
police to respond to information requests from the public.
The Act, though much watered down from the government's
pre-election promises, essentially aims to change the mindset of
government from the presumption that information should be kept
secret to making it public.
Government departments have had four years to prepare for the
Act.
Under the Act, public bodies are placed under a duty to create
publication schemes which provide the public with a summary of the
information they publish and how to obtain it.
The Act also means that any information requested from an
authority must be disclosed within 20 days unless it falls under
one of 25 exemptions. Unlike similar laws elsewhere in the world,
the UK legislation is retrospective, providing the public with
access to historical as well as contemporary documents.
Written material, photographs, plans, video and sound recordings
fall under the Act.
The Act, which comes under the remit of the Department of
Constitutional Affairs, will be policed by the Information
Commissioner.
Public bodies that fail to comply with legitimate freedom of
information requests could ultimately be found in contempt of court
- a criminal charge that could lead to fines or potential
imprisonment for council executives.
Information commissioner will give no
leeway
The Office of the Information Commissioner has warned public
authorities it will give them no leeway if they fail to comply with
the Freedom of Information Act by 1 January 2005.
Richard Thomas said that government bodies have had four years to
prepare for the Act and not being ready would not be an acceptable
excuse for failing to answer the public's requests.
"I say to every public authority you have got a choice: you can
embrace this legislation, make the best of it and really make sure
it delivers your agenda of being more open; or you can be dragged
kicking and screaming, fight every case and come across as a
resistant, closed and secretive organisation," he told a committee
of MPs last week.
Under the Act, public bodies are required to disclose information
requested by the public within 20 days unless it falls into one of
25 exemptions.
Those failing to comply could find themselves in contempt of court
- a criminal offence.
The agency issued warnings to local authorities in March when it
became clear that many of them were not yet fully aware of their
responsibilities under the Act.
Since then, there have been awareness-raising exercises and the
watchdog said it was now confident the issue was at the top of most
local authority's agendas.
"In terms of how ready they are, we are not going to know that
until 1 January when we see whether we get complaints or not," said
Dawn Monaghan, senior policy officer.
Members of the public who are dissatisfied with the way their
requests have been handled have the right to appeal the decision
with local authorities.
If they are still dissatisfied they can escalate the complaint to
the information commissioner and then to the Information
Tribunal.
Newham adopts the 80/20 method
Integrating freedom of information procedures with core local
authority systems will not only ensure compliance with the Act but
also improve a council’s customer relations and complaints
processes, said Richard Steel, head of IT at Newham Council in East
London.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, councils have to respond
to requests within 20 days. Considering this could involve anything
from a planning request from the 1940s to an e-mail sent in the
last month, this will be a challenge, Steel said.
Newham’s approach has been to build on document management
systems already used in the council’s customer relationship
management system. It has also used systems that meet the needs of
the Data Protection Act, comply with the Caldicott requirements for
health and social care records governance and complaints management
systems.
Working with document management supplier Anite, the council is
building keyword tagging and categorisation into its documents.
E-mail was a particular challenge, Steel said. "Any e-mail can
carry information that could need to be revealed under the Act.
E-mail is not very structured so we are bringing it into records
management so that every e-mail has an attachment that will be
stored separately."
Effective categorisation is also essential to meet the needs of
the new legislation, Steel said. "If you get an enquiry that says,
‘can you tell me all of the issues discussed as part of a planning
application in 1998?’ then normally that is an enormous amount of
work, but if you file documents with keywords and catalogue them,
it should be a lot simpler."
Newham council took an 80/20 approach to digitising council
records. This means it plans to create electronic records that
should answer about four out of five requests for information.
"We have planning records going back to 1948, so we will
digitise from 1979 onwards. This should deal with 80% of requests
electronically. We will digitise older documents as they are
requested and review the process as we go along," said Steel.
The council has so far invested about £300,000 in systems
associated with the Act. However, this does not include staff
training, an essential element of the programme, said Steel.
Newham has a PC-based training system along with a face-to-face
introductory session. About 1,000 staff should be trained across a
spread of departments by the beginning of next year. By the end of
2005 all staff should have received training.