News

Executive summary
The Freedom of information Act, which came into force in January 2005, is set to have a significant impact on the 75,000 or so bodies discharging public functions in the UK. While some critics say this latest piece of legislation, designed to enable greater public access to information and reduce secrecy, does not go far enough there can be no doubt that the Act introduces a signifi- cant additional burden for those organisations that must comply with it.

While the temptation among hard-pressed organisations may well be to see the Act as a nuisance and a low priority, the Government appears determined to ensure that the ability to manage and disseminate large quantities of information in an accountable way is mandatory for all public bodies.

Organisations will have to establish mechanisms for achieving compliance with the requirements and ensure all staff have a clear understanding of the Act’s obligations and how it will affect their dealings with the public.

The role of policies
Central to the success or otherwise of public authorities needing to implement the Act is how effectively they communicate relevant policies. To achieve FOI compliance it is essential that all public-facing staff can show they fully understand and agree how to handle incoming requests for information, together with guidance on what to do if they are unsure if the request is legitimate or not.

However, managing policy on processing information requests is not a trivial exercise. As we shall investigate in this paper there are a number of steps crucial to successfully deploying policy.

This document
This guide has been developed to provide those charged with compliance with an overview of the Act, an analysis of how policies can be used to communicate it effectively, together with a more detailed look at the exemptions provided for under the new legislation. This paper will also look at some of the information security implications of the Act and what organisations can do to ensure that staff are equipped to respond appropriately to requests for information.

The Freedom of Information Act

NOTES TO EDITORS

PolicyMatter is the solution developed by PolicyMatter Ltd and used by organisations to ensure staff understand and sign up to key policies, as well as providing them with detailed reports and audit trails. Adopted by major organisations in finance, the public sector, manufacturing, retail and service industries, PolicyMatter is used to solve problems of policy life-cycle management in compliance, risk, HR and information security.

Developed by the same team that created the market-leading MIMEsweeper content security solution PolicyMatter was awarded a five star rating and ‘Best Buy’ recommendation by SC Magazine in its most recent review of leading Policy Management solutions. PolicyMatter Ltd is an IBM Business Partner.

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