LC's Take on Freedom of Information

"Without openness we cannot hope to encourage greater participation in our democratic life." Rt. Hon. Lord Falconer of Thoroton, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, 1 March 2004, speaking about the Freedom of Information Act. 

Thank you for your correspondence with my colleagues concerning the request for information under the Freedom of Information Act (the Act) from Mr Paul Burns.

In accordance with the best practice suggested under the Lord Chancellor's Code of Practice under Section 45 of the Act and the Code of Practice under Regulation 16 of the EIR and (sic) we are grateful that you did consult with us before disclosing any information to Mr Burns. 

If the Council feels obliged under the Act to disclose information to Mr Burns, I would be grateful if the Council would notify Mr Burns in writing that he has no right to copy, distribute or publish the information as it is protected by the Council's Copyright and that Mr Burns has no licence to re-use the information.

Given the legal references it seems likely  that LC has consulted its lawyers. If the letter was drafted by counsel were they also responsible for the garbled middle paragraph? Whoever wrote the letter the intent of the last paragraph is clear. The Council was being invited to deter dissemination of information and this is done without any reference to consideration of what best serves the public interest.

"EIR" refers to the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Section 6 of the Code for EIR reads:

The Government is committed to greater openness in the public sector. FOIA and EIR will further this aim by helping to transform the culture of the public sector to one of greater openness, enabling members of the public to scrutinise the decisions of public authorities more closely and ensure that services provided by the public sector are more efficiently and properly delivered. Conformity with the Code will assist this.

Mole Valley District Council has not asserted any copyright over the materials sent and even if it did I would challenge this. Such a use of copyright would be against the spirit of the FOI Act. Council reports and papers that I have seen relating to LC have no resale value. The only reason for involving copyright in such circumstances would be to restrict the dissemination of information that may well be of interest of rate payers and users of the leisure centres. 

The EIR Code of Practice refers to HMSO Guidance on Copyright and this includes:

Under fair dealing, copyright material can be reproduced for the purposes of;  Research for non-commercial purposes and private study;  and For criticism, review and news reporting.

Clearly LCW is non-commercial as it is freely available and only the public good  profits from it. LCW is also engaged in criticising, reviewing and news reporting. So despite LC's wishes to keep secret the dirt obtained via Freedom of Information LCW will continue to to expose it. 

This is the second legalistic attempt by LC to limit reporting by LCW - see Legal Threat.

To see what LC would rather you did not know about - FOI Page.

PB