Mr. Ed Hammond:

Yes. On the question of improvements, one matter that is often raised is the fact that the Act requires public bodies to produce what is called a publication scheme setting out what documents and other items they publish as a matter of course. I do not think the publication scheme has worked as anticipated. Organisations do not regularly update their publication schemes in some instances. I suspect that many have not updated them since 2005.

The creation of publication schemes is a slightly formalised process. As it is a separate requirement for organisations, it is something they do not necessarily take seriously. Many freedom of information requests to public bodies can often be requests for information already covered under the publication scheme. This suggests the publication scheme is not automatically the first port of call. The principal improvement to the structure would be revisiting the publication scheme to use it to divert run of the mill requests to reduce the burden on public bodies.

The question of how we do this is probably slightly above my pay grade. It is a difficult issue and there is a public education aspect to it. There is also an issue about prior activity which leads on to the second improvement. The most significant improvement would involve a process that is less structured. It is about getting public servants and elected officials to realise that freedom of information legislation sits as part of a wider landscape of transparency and accountability. When there is that understanding, one will get more people taking a slightly more nuanced approach to freedom of information requests, seeing it less of a bureaucratic burden and understanding the issues the public might have with given services and requests. This would mean freedom of information requests would be used to influence decisions made in the future and how information is published.

Much of the work has been about publishing data and information in an ad hocway. An example is the requirement imposed on local authorities in England to publish all expenditure information on any budget lines above £500. On the face of it, it looks like a robust means of ensuring local accountability and transparency. However, it is not because all that happens is that the local authorities publish big spreadsheets every month which set out the amounts spent on various items but tell nothing more about the services provided or their impact. That information given in isolation is worse than useless because it encourages us to be complacent, thinking that because the information is published we are, therefore, transparent when that is not the case. It is about culture. Opening up is as much about linking data as it is about publishing more data. There is a lot of data, but the challenge is about linking it to make it more useful and highlight interesting conclusions.

On the point about commercial sensitivity, I accept that there will be parts of relationships between public and private bodies where commercial sensitivity will need to be maintained. One will still need that privacy to allow the formal exercise around negotiations to happen. I understand why private bodies would not want that kind of information published because there are issues to do with intellectual property, competitive bids and ensuring value for money. If one is publishing all bids for services, it will mean the market will be skewed. The market can only be affected in that context if one has a sealed and closed process. However, there are other opportunities beyond to open up the process. There can be full transparency in contracting. It is not unusual any more for this not to happen. As a matter of course, public bodies will publish contract-monitoring information. This comes back to my idea of ensuring control of management accountability for decisions reached. People at the top of public bodies want to ensure services delivered by contractors are delivered effectively. They will want to draw that information into themselves and, as a matter of course, when they hold it themselves, it can be subject to freedom of information legislation.

Unfortunately, the point about asylum is somewhat beyond my purview. I do not feel confident to deal with it, other than I will reiterate some of my points on policing around the publication of strategic information on deportations, asylum cases and backlogs. We have had issues in the United Kingdom about lengthy waiting times in dealing with asylum cases. However, I do not know enough about the issue to comment on it.

On fees and vexatious requests, the issue is understanding what makes a vexatious request vexatious. We should not be conflating a vexatious request with one that is a little difficult, annoying, embarrassing or persistent. For example, one cannot have a vexatious requester. The Commons justice committee examined how someone who made a lot of freedom of application requests could be classified as a vexatious requester. That is a point we strongly argue against. Just because someone makes a lot of requests does not necessarily mean they are not valid or valuable. Just because a person may have made a vexatious request once before does not mean future requests will be vexatious. The example of a vexatious request often given here is the freedom of information request to all councils from a newspaper asking how much they spent on biscuits. On the face of it, one can say it is a vexatious request, clearly designed as a stupid request to take up time and effort. However, there is also a valid request about expenditure on hospitality services. Vexatious is a high bar. One has to look at it from the requester's point of view. There is a need for this information. It is about a presumption in favour of openness. That is one of the benefits of the information regime. The information commissioner has been quite forthright for several years in appeals and introduced a high bar for determining what is a vexatious request. There is no evidence to suggest public bodies will be overwhelmed by a colossal number of vexatious requests. There will be requests that will be annoying, difficult and embarrassing. However, that is not vexatious.