Intellectual Property Law

Model behaviour: ICO issues draft model publication scheme

In mid-December 2007 the Information Commissioner's Office issued a new draft model Freedom of Information publication scheme. The ICO states in its press release that it aims to publish the final version in June 2008, so that public authorities can adopt it as their own publication schemes.

A publication scheme is the policy document of a public authority on:

• What types of information will be made public as a matter of course; and
• When that information will be made public.

Sections 19 and 20 of the Freedom of Information Act provide that publication schemes must be approved by the ICO; the exception is model publication schemes, where approval is not needed provided that the scheme is used without any alterations.

Interestingly, the ICO states that:

"First and foremost, this document is a contract between each public authority and the ICO rather than a guide to information for the public."

This is a new angle on the role of publication schemes; whilst Section 19 of the Freedom of Information Act makes it a legal duty for public authorities to adopt, maintain and comply with a publication scheme, this is a duty imposed by the Act, not by contract. It therefore seems that the ICO's contract terminology is a way of thinking (or, more likely, the way that the ICO wants public authorities to think) about publication schemes.

Full post as published by IMPACT on January 11, 2008 (boomark / email).