WRITTEN ON December 31st, 2004 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized
An interesting new myth is circulating among the tribes…it seems that from tomorrow you can ask the natives anything and they give you whatever answer they’ve got.
Does this mean an end to all the mysteries, or do the mysteries just deepen from tomorrow?
Our fellow anthropologist Maurice Frankel is the long-term expert. Other good sites: Steve Woods’ blog, Heather Brookes’ Your right to know, and The Guardian FOI special. And the key official, our ambassador in this strange world, is the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas.
2 Responses to “Old mysteries end and new mysteries begin”
Just a small point, but FOIA, for all its weaknesses is probably going to be A GOOD THING.
The test will be whether it helps us towards better informed debate, a more open public services, and greater public trust in democratic institutions.
No doubt we will eventually get through the current silliness, but meanwhile it’s nice to see that our loyal opposition have grasped the principles of open government with all the subtlety, insight, constructive thinking and strategic vision that one would expect.
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.press.release.page&obj_id=118409
The Friends of the Earth website has a useful list of contacts for Central Government Departments and their Publication Schemes. They also provide an online FOIA Request Generator for emails or faxes or letters.
If you have any suggestions for reasonable FOIA requests, bearing in mind the large number of exemptions or if you want to track the progress of our FOIA requests, you are welcome to visit our new UK FOIA Request tracking blog.
Who knows if this experiment will actually reveal anything useful, or if the bureaucracies have honed their information hiding skills to perfection over the last five years, under the shadow of the FOIA legislation.