When is a Freedom of Information request frivolous?
There’s been a lengthy conversation taking place on Twitter today between myself, Steve Jackson (@ourman) and Jon Hickman regarding a tweet I posted inviting someone to submit an FOI request:
“Anyone want to send their first Freedom of Information request? It’s already written for you. Invite to @helpmeinvestig8 thrown in.”
The rest of the conversation is captured below in a screengrab, but here’s my summary of the positions:
Steve: “each FOI potentially takes hundreds of pounds to answer. You have to weight up need to know with that … this “roll up roll up let’s file an FOI” approach just doesn’t seem responsible to me.”
Me: “In this case, the FOI was going to be sent and I thought it was a good way to show someone how to do it. Call it distance learning.”
Jon: “I’m pretty well educated and wanted to make an FOI and I found it a little daunting, luckily I got support from people like @rasga”
The debate continues, but I thought a blog post and comments might be a good place to keep a record, rather than it disappearing into the Twitter cloud…
Tags: freedom of information, jon hickman, ourman, steve jackson, twitter
Trackback • Posted by paulb in Uncategorized category
I was the twitter follower that took up the offer, I have been looking to get involved with Help Me Investigate for a while now, among other projects that i am involved in.
I am yet to use ‘what do you know’, (although i have now) and i also saw it as a good opportunity to learn about submitting an FOI request - we have tried a couple with our University that have not produced much usable information, so it was especially interesting in this case to be able to use and learn from a pre written request.
I also think that this particular investigation is a very important one. Over 2 million pounds is being spent on the Birmingham City website, it needs to be accessible and it needs people to make sure it will be.
If we just sit by and never challenge those accountable to us over their responsibilities to us then we will suddenly find ourselves wondering what happened to our freedom and our rights.
I think it is better that a few extra FOI requests are sent than not enough.
To reiterate and summarise my tweets, I think using a well founded FOI as an opportunity to demonstrate the process of making a Freedom of Information request to somebody who has never done one is a very good idea.
The novice FOI requester may never need to make their own FOI, but it is for the common good that people have the confidence and skills to make a challenge when and if they need to.
Okay, cards on table. I used to work for a local authority - I didn’t deal directly with FOI requests but was usually aware of those that came in because they obviously impacted upon my role within the press office - especially if they were likely to be something that might eventually make headlines.
Secondly, and hopefully obviously I think FOI requests are A Good Thing. I agree that people should be educated as to their usage and that they should be used to increase transparency.
However the phrase that particularly bugged me was “Anyone want to send their first Freedom of Information request?”
Now if that phrase had been - “is there something they are keeping from you - here’s how you find out” - then I would have had no complaints.
But how this read was starting with the creation of a desire to fill out an FOI then to work backwards to think…now what am I going to ask?
If you are having to do it that way then the suggestion is you’re question is spurious and a waste of resouces. These questions can (not always) take hundreds of pounds to answer - they shouldn’t be asked lightly. How much did the council spend on flowers last year? Well, possibly less than answering this FOI request.
At what point is it fair to take away financial resources from all of those services that authorities fund in order to answer FOI requests? This roll up, roll up.. “Anyone want to send their first Freedom of Information request?”…
….is it fair on everyone? Is it fair on the poorest elements of society who might feel it at the sharp end when funds are diverted from programmes that assist them?
An FOI request is something we should never take lightly. As someone one said (okay, okay it was Spiderman) “with great power comes great responsibility”
We have a democracy that works. For all the MP outrage at the expenses saga it proved that through transparency people can be held to account. But if we turn these requests from information away from the vital and towards the spurious then we can guarantee that people will find reasons to diminish this honour and this opportunity.
As I wrote on Twitter, we wouldn’t be encouraging people to cost the NHS money, because we know they have better things to do with their resources. That’s not to say that we don’t want the NHS to be run as best it can be. But equally if you deluge authorities with FOIs then you are taking up valuable resources. And how much do you really need to know the answer?
If it’s vital - if it’s newsworthy - if it is of genuine interest to people at large then great. Do it. It is your duty to do it.
But don’t fill in a an FOI for the sake of it. Don’t revel in making authority employees jump, just because you can.
“Ha ha…I asked and now they *have** to answer. Look at them jump through hoops. Come on…let’s ask another question…this is fun.”
Just be responsible. Make you FOIs count. Ask yourself your reasons for filling it in. Is it really for the greater good or for personal entertainment and ego?
Just think twice and get the process the right way around. If you *need* to know something then you should fill in an FOI.
Don’t think…I *want* to fill in an FOI….now what can I ask?
And the outcome is… you’re *all* right! Damn these intelligent people.
I do think FOIs and HelpMeInvestigate are good things, but I have been getting a little nervous lately of the quickness of UK citizens to demand accountability of others. We’re very good at pointing the finger but not quite so good at considering the consequences of doing so.
What I like about HelpMeInvestigate is that the process *can* help to expose the intricacies of policies and the nature of things as being anything but straightforward; it does begin to encourage critical analysis and collaboration in a way that tools such as WhatDoTheKnow do not.
But I would like to see more emphasis generally on encouraging critical reflection in civic engagement.
To give a lengthier answer: I saw this as an educational opportunity. An FOI was written and ready to go. I could have sent it myself but, thinking of Jon’s experience, if there was someone who was interested in the workings of FOI and just needed to be taken through the process, then it would be of benefit to them. This wasn’t ‘roll up, roll up’ as much as ‘who wants to learn how this works?’. Hopefully, that person would then have more confidence in future when they had a question they felt needed answering. I had enough trust in my online networks to assume that the person who responded would not be doing so frivolously.
My own experience has also been that the more FOIs I do (and I’ve not done that many), the fussier I get about when it’s worth doing it, rather than treating it in some frivolous way.