FoI files are to be 'made public'
ASSEMBLY departments and public bodies will soon be forced to reveal their Freedom of Information (FoI) disclosures on their website.
At present, information released to an individual is not seen by anyone else – unless it is passed to a journalist.
But Aubrey McCrory, who heads up the Information Commis-sioner's Office in Belfast, said that he now expects public bodies to publish responses to every FoI request on their websites.
Speaking to the News Letter, the Assistant Information Commissioner for Northern Ireland said that it was not within the spirit of openness – which FoI was meant to encourage – for departments to release information to one person but not make it more widely available.
"From January, public authorities will be required to have an updated version of their FoI publication scheme," he said.
"When bodies respond to a FoI request they should proactively make that information available. I anticipate that from January the culture of broadcasting individual FoI requests more widely will be more prevalent.
"We want a culture that promotes access to official information."
And, responding to the growing practice among some Government press offices of using FoI to delay releasing basic information for a month, Mr McCrory said there was nothing in FoI which prevented information being released as it would have been before the law came in," he said.
"The emphasis with FoI is 'business as usual' (where information would previously have been released) – the use of FoI should be more of an exception, rather than the norm."
Mr McCrory said that organisations would want to be sure that exemptions, which allow them to withhold information, are valid.
"However, the expectation should always be of disclosure unless a valid exception can be cited."
Today UK Information Commissioner Richard Thomas will visit Belfast to launch the Northern Ireland office's annual report.
The report will highlight enforcement cases in the past year, including findings against the NIO for breaching the Data Protection Act and against the PSNI for "apparently concealing information".
nHave you received documents under FoI? Email them to sam.mcbride@newsletter.co.uk or call 9089 7722.
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Weather for Belfast
Sunday 12 February 2012
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