FOI Complaints

Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
23. How many freedom of information complaints have been referred to the Information Commissioner; and if she will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State  for Constitutional Affairs (Vera Baird)
The Information Commissioner received 4,599 Freedom of Information Act complaints between 1 January 2005 and 31 October 2006.

Michael Fabricant
I am grateful to the Minister for her answer. She will have read the Select Committee report “Freedom of Information—one year on”. The Constitutional Affairs Committee received evidence that people had

“waited months for the Information Commissioner to start investigating their complaints.”

In the conclusion to that report, the Committee said that her Department should be taking

“a more proactive role in ensuring that Government Departments co-operate fully with the Commissioner”.

What steps has she taken since 28 June, when that report was issued, to ensure just that?

Vera Baird
There was a backlog during 2005, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman is well aware, and another £100,000 was given very quickly to the Information Commissioner to help him get that backlog under control. Since then he has had an extra 11 per cent.—£850,000—in 2006-07 for the same purpose, and we are in discussions with him about how to optimise those processes to speed them up.

I was last asked questions on this subject only a little over a month ago, when it was pointed out to me that there were in particular some difficulties with health authorities. One of the hon. Gentleman’s Back-Bench colleagues had sent a lot of requests that had not been responded to. Since then, I have caused a reminder to go out to those authorities in particular, that we do expect prompt results. If this is not moving too tangentially away from what the hon. Gentleman said, the Information Commissioner has announced that he is going to strengthen his enforcement strategy. I think he previously wanted cultural change and guidance to work, but now, where recalcitrant local authorities and “persistent offenders”, as he puts it, in the public sector are not responding, he will serve enforcement notices and use his powers.

Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
A real issue, and a cause of concern to the Information Commissioner, is that the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not cover those functions formerly of local authorities that were transferred to trusts such as Stockport Sports Trust, which is now making decisions behind closed doors. Does the Minister agree that changes to freedom of information rules are required to bring such bodies into line with those provisions and similar ones, such as the access to information provisions in the Local Government Act 1972?

Vera Baird
My hon. Friend makes a strong point. I think that he has made it before, and I agreed with him then, as I do now, that just because we have brought 110,000 public bodies within the ambit of this provision does not mean that we have gone as far as we need to go. There is an analogous problem with the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 to the private suppliers who deliver public functions, and I assure my hon. Friend that the Government are looking into those problems.

Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con)
As the Minister knows, it is important that her Department set an example in the field of freedom of information, as it is the responsible Department. She has stressed—she did so last month—how committed Ministers are to that. So why does her Department have a worse record than any other in granting freedom of information requests, even when the information is readily available? The average rate for all Departments is 62 per cent. but the Department for Constitutional  Affairs has never managed to answer even half of such requests, and in the most recent quarter it scored a miserable 38 per cent. If the Department for Transport can have a result of 78 per cent. of requests answered where the issue is resolvable, why is the DCA such a sink Department in this area? Is it not time that it got its act together?

Vera Baird
I dare say that, because it is full of lawyers, the Department is careful and cautious in its responses and it takes its time. In fact, over the last quarter 92 per cent. of all Government requests were responded to in time—they met the statutory deadline or a permitted deadline extension—and I reckon that 92 per cent. is rather a good proportion.

BILL PRESENTED

Statistics and Registration Service

Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Jack Straw, Hilary Armstrong, Mr. Secretary Hain, Secretary Alan Johnson, Secretary Ruth Kelly, Mr. Secretary Alexander, Mr. Stephen Timms, Dawn Primarolo, John Healey and Ed Balls, presented a Bill to establish and make provision about the Statistics Board; to make provision about offices and office-holders under the Registration Service Act 1953; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed [Bill 8].