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Summary

Introduction

An FOI officer's job is to ensure that their authority is in a position to comply with its obligations under the relevant FOI laws. Those obligations include answering requests, ensuring that the infrastructure is there to enable that to happen, and meeting additional requirements to publish information proactively.

In order to achieve this, FOI officers need help. Contrary to popular belief, they do not have instant access to every record in their authority, nor are they omniscient. They rely on others to identify relevant information and provide it. In many authorities, colleagues across the organisation may even respond to requests directly. Those people need to know what is expected of them. If they don't co-operate, FOI officers may need support from senior managers, who also want to know how the authority is performing, and whether there are any issues with compliance that need to be addressed.

More and more public authorities outsource services, with implications for FOIA compliance. With an increasing emphasis on proactive disclosure, practitioners need to consider how to promote a more open culture within their authority.

This chapter looks at what public authorities need to put in place to ensure they are in a position to comply with their obligations under FOI laws.

Senior level commitment

It is no good appointing an FOI officer and assuming that will ensure FOI requirements will be met. Public authorities need to ensure that responsibility for FOI compliance goes all the way to the top. The Irish code of practice discussed in Chapter 10 stresses that the management board of an authority is responsible for ensuring that the ‘necessary structures’ and ‘effective governance’ are in place. The Scottish Information Commissioner recom mends that a senior member of staff is made accountable and responsible for compliance with FOI legislation. Other managers should also be responsible for ensuring that policies and procedures are in place and that their staff are trained. The Irish code states that senior managers are responsible for promoting the idea that FOI is part of the core work of the authority.

This idea that senior managers should take responsibility for FOI is important. Leadership from the top is essential if an organisation is to implement FOI legislation successfully.

Summary

Introduction

Compliance with FOI laws is more than an exercise in legal analysis. More than anything else it is a logistical challenge, which requires organisational and attitudinal change. As discussed in Chapter 10, public authorities need an FOI officer or team to oversee the day-to-day administration of FOI. They need to be supported while they put in place an infrastructure of policies, procedures and training, as explored in Chapter 11. With all of this in place, an authority is ready to receive and process a request for information.

This in itself is not as straightforward as it might at first appear. The request has to be received, and not blocked by spam filters. The person who receives it has to know what it is, what to do with it, log its receipt, calculate a time limit by which it must be answered, and identify in which department there is likely to be someone able to answer it. That person must understand the question asked and identify, locate and extract the information requested. This has to be done while ensuring that the services they are primarily responsible for delivering are not disrupted.

Potential consequences of disclosing the information sought in an FOI request have to be considered. Anyone who might be affected by the disclosure should normally be consulted. Where appropriate, the relevant legal justification for refusal of some or all of the information has to be identified. If the information takes the form of a copy of a document, and only some of its content can be disclosed, parts of it will need to be blanked out. A response needs to be drafted specifying which information is being refused and explaining why; this might need the approval of someone with the appropriate authority. The approved response then has to be sent to the correct address, and a record kept of what was sent and when. All of this assumes that the information can be found, is located in one discrete unit of the authority, and that it is clear what can and cannot be disclosed.

If FOI deadlines are to be met, FOI officers have to ensure that a standard workflow is established taking each request from receipt to response, that they can negotiate objections and resistance, and that lessons are learnt when these various procedures do not go to plan.

Summary

This chapter defines the book's scope and aims, and introduces key concepts that will be discussed at much greater length in the following chapters. The book's title and subtitle are explained first, and then how information resource description fits into the modern information environment. This is followed by an outline of the field of information organization and an overview of the book's structure.

Information resources

This book is about the description of information resources. Just about all types of resource can be described, and are. However, this book focuses on information resources. We are not so much interested in how vacuum cleaners, for instance, are described, as for the most part they are not used for their information value, but rather as a cleaning resource. On the other hand, if they are being used for information purposes, for example, if they are part of a museum exhibition on the development of domestic appliances, then their description, in that context, would be relevant. Nevertheless, the sorts of things that we will typically be dealing with in this book are those that have been created primarily for information purposes, such as books, e-books, websites, newspapers, videos, digital images and so on.

The word ‘primarily’ in that last sentence is worth repeating. A very sophisticated vacuum cleaner could, say, inform its user when the dust bag is full, but this would be a secondary function, supporting its primary function as a cleaning tool. As a museum object, however, a vacuum cleaner's primary function would indeed be to inform. Conversely, many resources found in museums, libraries, archives and other agencies that collect and manage information resources may do more than inform, even in these contexts. For instance, many library books are read for entertainment as much as for information, but we shall consider that, in general, the provision of information, in a broad sense, is still one of their primary functions, rather than merely a secondary function supporting the reader's entertainment.

Resources such as books have been providing information for a very long time. Created as information resources, they are thereby communication devices, designed to disseminate messages. Not all communication devices are information resources, however.

Summary

Introduction

The right to know and the right to privacy are inextricably linked. Many people believe they are in conflict, and certainly there are times when observing the rights of individuals prevents information about them being disclosed. However, the right to privacy often depends to some extent on transparency, since individuals cannot defend their right to privacy if they do not know what information is held about them, and what it is used for. There are times when an absolute approach to privacy would be damaging for society, and potentially individuals. What is necessary is a mechanism to balance the two rights.

As Figure 6.1 on the next page illustrates, the most commonly used exemption in the FOIA by far by UK central government bodies in 2017 was the exemption for personal information at s. 40. This demonstrates how important the relationship between these two rights is, and how often it needs to be considered in practice. Whatever an applicant may be interested in, very often personal information is interspersed within documentation. Names, addresses, telephone numbers, signatures – all can be found among documents that may not be primarily about an individual. As personal information is so prevalent across public authorities it is essential that FOI laws provide protection for it.

In the UK protection of personal information is provided by the exemption at s. 40 of the FOIA, and in the EIR by regs 5(3), 12(3) and 13. These provisions seek to avoid a conflict between FOI and the GDPR and the DPA 2018, the laws that govern the use of personal information in the UK. Internationally, many FOI laws incorporate data protection rules, recognising the close link between the two rights.

Around the world: personal information exemptions

Given that the GDPR applies across the whole of the EEA, and even countries outside that area have adopted, or are intending to adopt, compatible laws on handling personal information, pretty much every European state has mechanisms in their FOI laws to manage the relationship between the GDPR and the right to know.

Scotland's FOI(S)A has an exemption at s. 38 which is broadly the same as the FOIA s. 40 exemption. Like the UK's Act, the FOI(S)A and the Scottish EIR have been amended by the DPA 2018 to take account of the GDPR.

Summary

Introduction

One of the problems with regulating any activity is that it can become an exercise in compliance. Organisations adopt a ‘tick box mentality’, which can get in the way of what the legislation is trying to achieve. FOI is no different.

FOI laws are essentially about customer relations. Remember that one of the aims of the FOIA was ‘to increase trust in public authorities’. It has been said that this was an unrealistic target for legislation, but perhaps it isn't for individual public authorities, and in particular for individual FOI officers. Laws don't increase trust – people do. Providing FOI is a public service, and FOI officers should aim to deliver it well and positively.

Some public officials balk at the phrase ‘customer service’. Whatever they are called – customers, members of the public, citizens – if they make an FOI request, they are asking our authority to deliver a service. This is no different from any other service that a public authority might provide, whether it relates to housing, education, health care, record offices or libraries. Whatever the law may say about providing these services, they are much more likely to work well and be appreciated by those they are being provided to if public authorities consider the needs of those they are interacting with. In other words, if they aim to provide a good service to their customers.

The way that FOI officers and their colleagues communicate with the public is therefore important. In some situations, the manner in which a public authority engages with applicants may be of more significance than whether the information requested is ultimately provided.

Think of the points at which contact is made with the public as an opportunity; it could be to try to shut down an issue, to use clever language to avoid having to disclose something, or to make clear to someone that exercising their rights is considered a waste of the authority's time and resources. This is unlikely to leave the applicant with a positive opinion of the organisation or its employees. On the other hand, an FOI officer can use their contact with the public to demonstrate their professionalism, to show off the authority at its best, to win over a critic.

Summary

Introduction

In the previous chapter we talked of metadata elements, the building blocks of information resource description. Each element describes an aspect, or attribute, of the information resource. Its title, author, subject, size, publication date and so on – all are attributes that could be described if applicable to a particular resource. As was mentioned, there are countless ways in which one could look at, and therefore describe, an information resource. Clearly, some attributes are more relevant in the provision of information access than others. This chapter will discuss which attributes are likely to be more important, and why.

In some more technical discussions, a resource's attributes are distin - guished from its relationships to other entities. In such a model, a book's size might be considered an attribute, whereas its author might be considered another entity with an ‘authorial’ relationship to the book. The distinction will not be pursued here, however, as ultimately it is one of expression: any attribute could be expressed as a relationship between two entities (e.g. the concept ‘folio’ might have a ‘size’ relationship to a book), and any relationship could be expressed as an attribute (e.g. authorship). Nevertheless, expressing and presenting metadata in the form of relationships can be a very effective mode of description, as we shall later observe.

Describer and user contexts

Information resource description is inevitably biased: it is influenced by the motives, situation, limitations and world-view of its creator. This is true regardless of how much the creator wishes to assist prospective users. Even information professionals, who may profess a ‘neutral’ position, will invariably have a particular take on how best to serve users’ needs. The field of information organization has developed various policies and standards that are generally regarded as ‘good practice’, but few would seriously contend that any of them were perfect solutions (even in a particular context). Nevertheless, metadata creators should all start with the same fundamental question: what metadata will most help users to obtain the information they are looking for?

Summary

Introduction

The UK's Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) did not become law on a sudden whim of the government of the time. When it received royal assent on 30 November 2000 it was the culmination of a long campaign for a right to information law in the UK. It was also a relatively late instance of such a law being introduced in the western world.

Internationally, FOI laws in various forms are becoming commonplace. From Albania to Zimbabwe, access to information is increasingly seen as a fundamental right. Very often, the right to information is high on the agenda of those seeking the overthrow of tyranny. As well as providing a check on power, FOI laws are an important symbol of the freedom and democracy that many nations aspire to.

For many years, there was resistance to the introduction of such a right in the UK. It was argued that it was incompatible with the way that the country was governed, and that it was unnecessary. It was only after years of campaigning by groups such as the Campaign for Freedom of Information, the media, individuals and politicians that FOIA became a reality.

Even then, many people working for public bodies could not understand why the government had chosen to inflict such an administrative burden on them. Why us? Why now? Those questions persist in some parts of the public sector.

FOI officers carry out their role in this context. Understanding where FOI comes from, why it is seen as so important by campaigners and politicians, and how it came to be helps them to better understand their role and argue the case for transparency more effectively.

We didn't start the FOIA

When was the first FOI law passed? Few know, and if pushed will guess at the origins of FOI lying anywhere from the time of classical Greece (500-300 BC) to the late 20th century (in fact, there are suggestions that the principle of FOI may have its roots in ancient China). The ancient world undoubtedly could provide examples of what might be loosely termed transparency, mostly to suit the political tactics of politicians. However, there was nothing that we would recognise as a right of access like that enshrined in the FOIA.

Summary

Introduction

FOI laws would be toothless if sending out a response was the end of the story. The ability of applicants to appeal decisions is a crucial aspect of the FOIA. It is inevitable that at times applicants disagree with the decisions made by public authorities. FOI officers are fallible, and do not always apply the law correctly. Very often the decision is out of their hands and more senior colleagues insist on a request being refused whatever they are advised.

It might seem twee, but complaints help organisations and their employees to learn, and FOI is no different from other areas of work in this respect. Whatever stage a complaint may reach there are lessons to learn from it. FOI officers may even be aided by the outcome of complaints. A critical ruling from the Infor - mation Commissioner or a court, while uncomfortable at the time, can assist in reinforcing messages that they have been trying to get across to colleagues for years.

The appeal process under the FOIA consists of several stages:

Summary

Introduction

It seems obvious that FOI laws cannot work without administrative support. The quotation that opens the introduction to this book highlights the important role that public employees play in ensuring that FOI laws work in practice. In particular, there are those who oversee the day-to-day management of FOI obligations – the FOI officers. Their job is crucial, since however an organisation chooses to manage its compliance, someone has to establish policies and procedures, provide advice to colleagues, and monitor progress in the handling of requests. FOI cannot function without some sort of central resource to maintain it.

Yet despite their central importance to the delivery of FOI laws, not much has been written about FOI officers. This limits our understanding of how FOI works in practice, and leaves those in this essential role without the support they need to do the job well. This chapter seeks to address this, looking in detail at what an FOI officer is, and indeed what they should be.

What does the FOIA say about FOI officers?

As Chapter 1 demonstrated, the journey to the adoption of the FOIA in the UK was long, with the legislation receiving significant scrutiny. Following its passage, the government allowed over four years for full implementation. As a relatively late adopter of an FOI Act, the UK was also able to benefit from others’ experience. It would be reasonable to expect in these circumstances that thought would have been given to how the legislation would work in practice, and – more to the point for present purposes – who would be responsible for delivering it. Yet the FOIA is silent on its own resource implications. There is no requirement to identify an officer with lead responsibility for FOIA implementation, or who applicants should contact to make their requests.

The preface of the original s. 45 code of practice referred to the need to appoint staff to support FOIA compliance, but even then it was fleeting and of limited application: ‘Larger authorities should ensure that they have a central core of staff with particular expertise in Freedom of Information who can provide expert advice to other members of staff as needed.’ The 2018 version of the code doesn't even go this far.

Summary

Introduction

The last two chapters have explored the FOIA – its key provisions and the exemptions available to justify non-disclosure of information, and highlighted comparable provisions from FOI laws around the world. Wherever an FOI officer plies their trade, the legislation itself is the primary source when establishing their organisation's obligations.

That said, the language used in legislation is not always easy to comprehend without assistance. Few FOI officers are fortunate enough to have benefitted from formal legal training of any kind. Very often even experienced lawyers struggle to interpret legislation that they encounter. The wording can be ambiguous, so that different readers understand the same provision in varying ways. Then there's the difference between the real world that most of us live in, and the world as set out in statute. Very often, situations arise that the drafters of legislation could not possibly have foreseen. With thousands of organisations having to comply with the FOIA in the UK, and millions of people able to use its provisions to make requests, it is inevitable that circumstances emerge that could not reasonably have been envisaged during the passage of the legislation.

Very often applicants disagree with how legislation has been interpreted, and ask ombudsmen (such as the Information Commissioner in the UK) or the courts to decide what should happen. Over (sometimes considerable) time their decisions clarify FOI laws – for the most part. Sometimes the decisions themselves are not easy to understand.

There are many situations that cannot be resolved simply by turning to a battered old copy of the FOI law. This book aims to be a resource that FOI officers can turn to for reliable assistance at times like these, but this chapter identifies where else FOI officers can turn to for help when they are unsure what is expected of them or their employer. Taken together with the relevant legislation, the resources discussed below constitute the FOI officer's toolkit.

Codes of practice

The FOIA requires the government to publish codes setting out good practice. Section 45 of the FOIA requires the relevant secretary of state (currently the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster since machinery of government changes in 2015) to set out best practice for compliance with Part I of the Act in a code of practice.

Summary

Introduction

In the previous chapter we looked at some important standards pertaining to the elements, format and transmission of metadata. This chapter looks at the standardisation of metadata values. Prescribed sets of values are often referred to as vocabularies. They may be used for indexing, for display or both. Many vocabularies are designed to cover a particular knowledge domain, and to describe the subject of information resources. Sometimes they are called knowledge organization systems. Zeng and Chan (2003, 377) define such systems as ‘tools that present the organised interpretation of knowledge structures’. Vocabularies have also been developed for other elements, apart from subject.

The values used to describe a resource are always relative, that is, they allow resources to be compared and contrasted with each other. Controlled vocabularies enable resources to be organised systematically into groups. Other value systems are quantitative in nature, applying some form of measurement. There are also systems that prescribe a unique value to each resource for the purposes of identification rather than selection. We shall take another look at systems of identification towards the end of the chapter. First, however, we shall discuss the various types of controlled vocabulary that have been developed to describe and organise information resources, starting with those used to describe their subject.

Controlled subject vocabularies

An information resource's subject can, of course, be described in uncontrolled, natural language. Abstracts, for example, usually indicate what journal articles and other academic papers are about. We have already observed, however, that the standardisation of vocabulary (beyond simply specifying that it should be in a particular natural language, such as English) can improve retrieval, especially if both indexer and searcher use the same controlled vocabulary. The aim is for each concept to be represented by one, and only one, particular term, and for each term to mean only one particular concept.

The application of controlled vocabularies, especially subject vocabularies, is not necessarily so straightforward. This is partly because of the limitations of any given vocabulary and partly because of the nature of what is being described. The ‘subject’ of a resource is not always something that can be easily identified, and is ultimately a matter of judgement: it will be viewed differently by different people.

Summary

Introduction

We have noted, in the preceding chapters, some of the benefits of applying various kinds of metadata standard. Their use can improve the consistency of resource description and facilitate the sharing of metadata; they can also assist with other aspects of metadata quality. A standard is more than a convention. It represents a practice that is prescribed, not simply what is normal. A standard may be aimed at staff inside a single organization (an inhouse standard) or at a much broader community of practice, perhaps at national or international level. In order for it to be promulgated, a standard is set out in some form of document. Sometimes this document may not explicitly claim the status of a standard but is nevertheless followed by a large number of practitioners, making it a de facto standard. Many of the standards applied by metadata specialists fall into this category. Other standards, however, may be the product of an extensive consultation process and are formally approved by a professional body or standards agency. On its website, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines standards as ‘documented agreements containing technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose’.

Standards have been developed for all aspects of metadata, including its values, elements, format and transmission. Many standards cover more than one of these aspects. However, we shall leave those that primarily relate to values, such as the controlled vocabularies we mentioned in Chapter 5, for the next chapter. In this chapter we shall look at key standards pertaining to elements, format and transmission.

Metadata standards sometimes consist of little more than a list (e.g. of elements), but often they are considerably more detailed. They may, for instance, contain definitions, indicate relationships, specify circumstances of use, advise how a resource should be analysed or give options. The more detail, the greater the likelihood of consistency and quality metadata, although it also makes a standard more difficult and costly to apply.

There are, in fact, a wide range of factors that can influence the extent to which a metadata standard is adopted, including purpose, resource attributes, design, granularity, interoperability, support, growth, extensibility, repu - tation, ease of use and existing expertise (Kelly, 2006).

Summary

Introduction

In the UK and everywhere else FOI derives from legislation. If FOI officers want to know what they have to do, and be able to provide advice to colleagues and applicants, they need to understand that legislation. Although there are other places to go for help, some of which are described in Chapter 4, all the codes, guidance, books, decisions of regulators and courts are based on the statute itself.

It is surprising how often a seemingly intransigent problem that an FOI officer has to deal with can be resolved simply by going back to a battered, dog-eared copy of the FOIA, and re-reading what the UK Parliament has set down. Myths build up over what the FOIA does and doesn't require, and going back to the original legislation often helps to establish fact over rumour. Questions as to whether a request is valid, whether information is held, whether it is possible to withhold information – all unlocked at times by simply going back to the source. To be an FOI officer, and to be good at it, it is necessary to read the legislation itself.

Those not used to working with statute may be nervous about reading legislation in its raw state, but the FOIA can be (though isn't always) straightforward to understand. If anything, legislation in other jurisdictions tends to be even clearer.

This chapter looks at the process of creating laws in the UK, how they are structured, and how to access them, before going on to examine the main features of the FOIA. The way that those features are approached in other countries’ FOI laws are highlighted. It is important to recognise that FOI doesn't have to be the way that it is, and that the choices made by legislators have been made for a reason.

Legislation in the UK

The FOIA is an Act of Parliament agreed by the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the monarch, who gave royal assent to the Act on 30 November 2000. Legislation that is still going through the process of reaching agreement by those institutions is referred to as a Bill. Acts are referred to as ‘primary legislation’.

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11 - Embedding FOI

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12 - Managing FOI requests

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Abbreviations

1 - Definitions and scope

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6 - The FOIA, personal information and the GDPR

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Index

13 - Communicating with applicants

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PART 1 - UNDERSTANDING FOI

PART 2 - FOI IN CONTEXT

2 - Information resource attributes

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1 - A brief history of freedom of information

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Further reading

14 - Internal reviews and appeals

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10 - The FOI officer

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4 - The FOI officer's toolkit

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Index

8 - Vocabularies

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7 - Metadata standards

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2 - Understanding the Act

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List of abbreviations

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