What is it with this government?
We were told that introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would do away with anyone hiding what they would do in our name. Indeed, we are told by the Information Commissioner that “[f]rom the Data Protection Act to the Freedom of Information Act, we regulate and enforce the access to and use of personal information.”
What better accountability could we wish for in a modern democracy – control of and access to the information needed to scrutinise those using our data or making decisions in our name.
Well, forget it! We are now told that there are to be rules introduced to limit the costs spent on providing the information we are entitled to.
In addition, the costs will include time spent assessing the costs and the list of rules that apply when calculating the overall cost. There are rules about rules, rules about who can ask for information and whether simply asking the same question asked by someone else is considered acting in tandem thus depriving you of the opportunity to ask in the first place.
The fact is that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 has been a great success and has uncovered details that have embarrassed those in power by exposing matters that they wished never to see the light of day.
It is this that they hate and now they want to hobble anyone using it to get an answer. They say it is to save £100 million, but this is a joke as the same people want to spend 10's of £Billions looking at us, down to uncovering where we buy our knickers.
Why is it that they have all the funding they want to look at us, and we are denied a fraction of that in order that we can scrutinise them?
1 comment:
Keep up the good work.
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