Research explores pandemic’s impact on FOI in Scotland

Research explores pandemic’s impact on FOI in Scotland

By Joe Chapman

Freedom of information (FOI), like almost every other element of our lives, was inevitably impacted by COVID-19 and the restrictions on our normal way of life and ways of working that resulted. At the same time, however, the transparency enabled by FOI was – and continues to be – as important as ever; during a public health crisis, sharing of information can help save lives.

To establish how FOI performed north of the border during the first few months of the pandemic, the Scottish Information Commissioner and his staff carried out research into how Scottish public authorities responded, not only to new ways of working, but also to the amended FOI timescales that were in effect from 7 April to 26 May 2020.

The research culminated in a Special Report, which featured the following conclusions:

• The pandemic caused delays to some responses to information requests in 2020, but the impact on FOI in Scotland did not appear to be as significant as some may have feared. Emergency legislation temporarily extended the maximum timescale for responding to FOI requests and reviews from 20 to 60 working days.

While relied on in a number of cases, this did not become the norm.

• Public authorities generally took a proactive approach to publication of information about the pandemic and their responses to it. This may, to some extent, have contributed to the reduction in request volumes seen earlier in 2020.

This highlights the need to communicate clearly about change, and the role that a modernised proactive publication duty (which focuses on the public interest in information being swiftly and proactively published) should have in the future.

• Reallocation of FOI resources was the most common pandemic-related cause of delays to FOI responses – underlining the importance of properly resourcing the

FOI function. Authorities must continue to focus on the need to respond promptly to requests, whatever the maximum timescale in force at the time the request was handled, as a number of the

Commissioner’s enforcement decisions made to date have highlighted. Those authorities which have deprioritised their FOI function risk damaging not only their FOI performance, but also the corresponding public trust in their organisations, if these structures and resource are not restored.

Although anticipating that the pandemic will continue to have an impact on FOI practice for some time yet, the Commissioner warned that those authorities which had deprioritised their FOI function risked damaging not only their FOI performance, but also public trust, if resources were not restored to normal levels as quickly as possible.

You can read the full report, view data from the research, and find links to more information about the temporary changes to FOI law in Scotland on the Commissioner’s website: <www.itspublicknowledge.info/ CovidReport>.

The Author

Joe works for the Scottish Information Commissioner, the regulator of freedom of information law in Scotland. He’s previously worked in information management roles across the Scottish public sector, and is also the Conference Director of the IRMS.

<jchapman@itspublicknowledge.info>