Faith no more?

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was meant to renew faith in politics. But as we approach the fifth anniversary of this landmark legislation Ben Worthy argues that despite Tony Blair’s noble intentions, the Act has not improved trust in Government – and neither should we expect it to.

Could you tell us about the three year research project you’ve carried out into the impact of the FOI Act?

The project was the first to look really deeply into the impact of FOI legislation anywhere in the world. Although FOI has now spread to some 75 countries around the world – including to some extent countries such as China and Zimbabwe – it has been surprisingly under-researched. There has been little theoretical analysis of its objectives, or empirical evaluation of the extent to which they have been achieved. Nor has there been any detailed examination of its impact on government, or of official concerns that FOI might be detrimental to effective government decision making or the quality of official records.

We found that trust had not been increased by FOI. Only 3 per cent of stories increased the reader’s trust in government; more than half of the articles, 58 per cent, reduced trust in government; while more than a third, 39 per cent, had no effect, being ‘business as usual’ or historical FOI requests. Only 3 per cent of requesters who answered our survey felt that FOI had increased their trust.

Tony Blair once famously said that the FOI Act would “signal a new relationship between government and people; a relationship which sees the public as legitimate stakeholders in the running of the country and sees election to serve the public as being given on trust”. What went wrong?

Our point is that FOI has achieved a number of things but like a lot of reforms it has been oversold. The Act has met its two core objectives in improving transparency and accountability. But it hasn’t achieved some of its second level objectives such as improving public understanding of Government decision making and driving up levels of trust in Government. These have been low for a variety of complex factors for a very long time, and it’s unlikely that FOI could improve them in a meaningful way. The FOI Act has not failed but the objectives it set were possibly too high.

What comparisons, if any, can you draw with similar FOI Acts in other countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, for example?

In Australia and Canada the situation was slightly different because it was in place before the information revolution. This makes a difference to people’s expectations as to what they think it will achieve. Broadly it has increased transparency and accountability in Australia and New Zealand. However, Canada has had a lot of problems with FOI because it has starved it of resources so it’s not used very much. You also have to put in a request in writing, which tends to deter a lot of people as they would rather do it electronically. We found similar problems in Australia when it was deprived of funding and political support. But in no case did we find that trust in the Government had increased as a result of FOI.

Given that 99.9per cent of people have never made a FOI request, what did you find out about how the media approach FOI requests?

One of the big findings from our research is that FOI is greatly influenced by the media. Journalists make a lot of requests and they act as the vanguard for FOI because they pursue a lot of requests through the appeals system. They push the boundaries of FOI. A good example of this is the MPs expenses scandal. It was three journalists who pushed this all the way to the High Court. The media shapes the perception of FOI by publishing a small percentage of the information that is disclosed as a result. This information, however, is very much in line with general media values and reflects the age-old conflict between the media and government. What they report is often failure, maladministration or some scandal.

Does the fact that FOI requests are stuck in a very negative media context make it impossible for FOI to increase trust?

The examples that are reported are almost always negative. They’re the ones that make the headlines. This is partly the problem, but trust is a very complex issue. FOI is shaped by its political context. Britain is quite a transparent and accountable democracy. But it’s not one that has a high level of public engagement or enjoys a high level of trust either.

On a plus side you could find no evidence of any decline in the quality of official advice as a result of FOI?

Absolutely none. Changes are usually the result of different pressures such as the fear of leaks for example.

Will Government always be seen as secretive?

Yes, I think so. Part of the discourse about FOI is that it will always struggle to ever take our democracy towards broad sunlit uplands because it creates an arena for conflict, which will always be dogged by political problems and headaches. It’s always going to be shaped by a political context.

Image provided courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rach_holmes/3579072029/

Dr Ben Worthy is a research associate at University College London. His research into the impact of FOI on central Government was funded by the ESRC and carried out in conjunction with Prrofessor Robert Hazell. For more information visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/research/foi/projects/whitehall.htm