Intellectual Property Law

ICO favours extending Freedom of Information to public sector contractors

The Information Commissioner's Office has confirmed its support for extending the Freedom of Information (FOI) regime to contractors and outsource service providers to the public sector. The ICO, the enforcer of the FOI and and Data Protection Act in the UK, gave the confirmation in a public response to a Ministry of Justice consultation on FOI. In its response, the ICO said:

"The [ICO]... observes the fast pace of change in the delivery of public functions and services in terms of public and private sector remits, for example in the Health Service. It is vital that the FOI Act keeps pace with these changes in order that public confidence in the regime is maintained and compliance with right to know legislation cannot be reduced by funding external organisations to carry out functions or contracting out. Where public authority functions are transferred to other organisations in principle FOI obligations should follow."

Key points to the ICO's response:

• The ICO favours a staged approach to extending FOI, gradually widening its remit rather than doing to the complete extension in one go. The ICO says this will enable it to manage its resources, and enable lessons to be learnt from each stage of expansion.
• The ICO doesn't think that all contractors/outsourcers to the public sector should be subject to FOI. The ICO: "would suggest that careful consideration needs to be made about the value that can be gained from adding organisations against what information is already accessible via the Act. The Commissioner considers that a bar set in the region of £1million for public sector contracts might provide a suitable starting point for considering whether public sector contractors are brought within the Act."
• The ICO lists five private organisations (not subject to the FOI regime) for whom it has received FOI complaints/enquiries: Press Complaints Commission, Financial Ombudsman Service, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, ICTIS (now PhonepayPlus, and Financial Reporting Council. The ICO doesn't offer any 'firm views' on whether they should be covered by FOI.

The ICO is very influential at present, having acquired a very high profile as a result of the very public in losses of personal data by both public and private sector bodies in 2007 and so far in 2008. We will have to wait and see whether this influence is apparent in the Ministry of Justice final proposals on FOI.

Full post as published by IMPACT on April 28, 2008 (boomark / email).