FoI footnotes

Posted by Martin Stabe on 23 October 2006 at 17:22
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

The BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum has some sage advice for journalists: Always read the footnotes in government reports.

In particular, Rosenbaum refers to the footnotes in the report commissioned by the government from Frontier Economics to assess the impact of various proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act’s fees regime (PDF).

Based on calculations contained in this report, the Government is justifying its proposal to change the FoI fees regime on cost grounds. Journalists and activists, however, have argued that the main effect — and some suspect the purpose — of any change in fees policy would be to eviscerate the open government legislation, particularly as a useful tool for journalists.

Buried deep in the footnotes, though, Rosenbaum has spotted some strange cost assumptions “which seem to be entirely arbitrary and have important consequences for their calculations” — like pricing ministerial and private office time at £300 per hour and arbitrarily doubling the cost assessed for internal discussion.

Update: Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, has an opinion piece in the Telegraph today about the proposed changes.

Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism