Revealing the facts about freedom of information

Sep 17 2008 by Martin Shipton, Western Mail

Western Mail Comment

IT IS shocking that so few people in Wales know of their rights under the Freedom of Information Act. However, the lack of a public awareness campaign until now makes the ignorance far from surprising.

Official secrecy has been the hallmark of British governments for centuries. The mindset of senior civil servants has been moulded by a culture in which the unauthorised disclosure of the most mundane official information was until recently a crime.

In the 1980s there was a succession of cases where civil servants who leaked information in the public interest faced prosecution.

Clive Ponting, who later taught at Swansea University, was acquitted after leaking secret documents which showed that an Argentine naval cruiser, General Belgrano, was sailing away from the Falklands exclusion zone when it was sunk by British forces, contrary to the statements of ministers.

It was cases like Ponting’s that led to mounting pressure for a Freedom of Information Act in Britain.

When Labour was in opposition, the party promised it would deliver such an Act, and when it came to power it eventually did so.

But the Act we got was a watered- down version of the original blueprint and a long way from freedom of information legislation in force in the United States and elsewhere.

Those seeking to keep information secret were given plenty of opportunities to continue doing so, with more than 20 exemptions from the duty to disclose, as well as a public interest test whose results can sometimes seem perverse.

Having said that, the Act we now have is most certainly an advance on the situation we were in before. Its very existence has forced public bodies to disclose information that in the past would undoubtedly have remained secret simply because the organisations concerned did not want to be embarrassed.

There are community groups and campaign bodies across Wales which have benefited from these new legal rights, and are grateful that the direction of travel is decidedly in favour of more openness.

While the level of knowledge about the Freedom of Information Act is low, it is encouraging that the Information Commissioner’s Office is at last taking steps to educate the public about their rights.

Until now it has almost seemed that the Act was for the esoteric few who were aware of its implications. The decision to try to engage more people in seeking information of relevance to themselves and their communities, is a necessary step in making public authorities at all levels more accountable to citizens.

Another desirable consequence of greater engagement could be the kind of pressure that will be required before further advances in the field of information rights are achieved.