The Cabinet Office must do more to prove its commitment to better FoI handling
Cabinet Office must do more to show its commitment to FoI openness
After the publication of its response to an internal review into Freedom of Information, Matthew Fright says the Cabinet Office must do more to show its commitment to FoI openness
The Cabinet Office has published its response to an internal review, led by Sue Langley OBE, on the role of its Clearing House – a body that helps to coordinate certain Freedom of Information (FoI) responses across central government. Following a series of misjudgements that led to a breakdown in relations with civil society groups, it has a high bar to cross before trust in the process is restored.
Recent moves by the Cabinet Office have not inspired confidence: from the decision to fight a legal battle to prevent details of Clearing House data from entering the public domain, to opting for an internal rather than external review of the Clearing House, to launching that review the day before a parliamentary committee concluded a report on the same topic (which, in the words of the committee chair, said “less about its commitment to transparency and more about news management”),[1] to then rejecting the committee’s conclusions.
Whatever the motivation, the trust and reputation of the Cabinet Office as a transparent organisation stands or falls on its response to the Langley review.[2]
Requests for external audits into FoI should not be refused
The Cabinet Office is one of only two bodies to refuse an FoI audit from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the data regulator responsible for promoting and enforcing FoI. And, unlike the other – the BBC[3] – no legitimate reason has been provided in public or in parliament. The internal review noted the then minister “felt” an internal review was “more appropriate”. The Cabinet Office this year also rejected a parliamentary committee request to permit the ICO undertake its audit.[4]
Ministerial whim is a poor justification to deny access to a statutory regulator. And repeatedly denying that regulator access to carry out its role risks setting a troubling precedent for other bodies across government. To prevent repetition of this poor practise, Cabinet Office needs to come clean on the reasons for this refusal and legislate to move ICO FoI audits from a voluntary basis to full statutory access rights. The Cabinet Office must in future ensure all departments – itself included – comply with ICO requests.
The Langley review falls short of what parliament requested
The Langley review is undeniably a serious exercise, with wide engagement and pragmatic suggestions on how to improve the Clearing House process. It contains hard messages for the Cabinet Office about concerns across government about how applicant blind procedures were followed, the need for greater public information on the unit and the impact that a historical lack of transparency has had on perceptions of it.
Despite this the review was narrower in scope than a recent report on Cabinet Office’s compliance with the FoI act by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC).[5] It therefore misses several points from the PACAC inquiry including the need for a better FoI culture in Cabinet Office, the need for better data and record keeping in the Clearing House (it lacks basic data on the number of cases its handles), the need to take meaningful action on the lengthy delays facing FoI reviews and demonstrate a stronger tone from the top on FoI.
The Cabinet Office needs to prove its commitment to FoI
To the Cabinet Office’s credit, it has published its internal Langley review in full when previously it stated it would be an internal document.[6] It has also agreed to pilot a new approach, closer to the spirit of FoI laws on how central government handles cases – to reduce the risk that decisions on FoI cases are influenced by the name of the FoI applicant (so called ‘applicant blind case handling’). Likewise, the move to publish greater details on the round robin process – the way the Cabinet Office coordinates FoI decisions across departments for duplicate and similar FoI request – is also a step in the right direction. These actions, however, are relatively low effort and overdue for change.
Further work is needed. The government has agreed with the Langley review’s recommendation to replace the Clearing House with an “FoI Centre of Excellence”, but this requires it to deliver against the review’s proposed vision for the unit to ensure this doesn’t simply become a rebranding exercise. The government response is vague about the frequency and volume of transparency publications on the Clearing House. For example, whilst the internal review called for ‘key performance indicators’ on FoI performance, this detail is missing from the government response.
Finally, the Cabinet Office lacks a delivery timetable for its aspirations, which risks decisions being kicked down the road. In the meantime civil society groups, parliament – and the IfG – will monitor to see whether Cabinet Office sticks true to its word and delivers these proposals.
[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-freedom-of-information-system-isnt-fit-for-purpose-2wwqx5scv
[3] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8233/documents/84194/default/
[5] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/22055/documents/163743/default/
- Supporting document
- government-transparency.pdf (PDF, 3.11 MB)
- Topic
- Civil service
- Department
- Cabinet Office
- Publisher
- Institute for Government