Dr Ben Worthy

Education

• PhD, University of Manchester  Policy-Making in British Central Government: The Freedom of Information Act 2000: A Case Study

• MA (Research) from the University of Manchester in Governance and Public Policy

• BA (Hons) 1st Class from University of Manchester in Politics and Modern History

Research and scholarship

Books

• Hazell, Robert, Worthy, Ben and Glover, Mark (2010) Does FOI work? The impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 upon British central government (Palgrave Macmillan)

Articles

• Worthy, Ben and Bourke Gabrielle (Forthcoming) ‘Transparency and Tension: Universities and Freedom of Information in the UK’
• Worthy, Ben, Hazell, Robert and Bourke, Gabrielle (2012) ‘Open House: Freedom of Information and its Impact on the UK Parliament’. Public Administration (forthcoming, online)
• Worthy, Ben (forthcoming) ‘The Impact of Open Data Projects: Cautionary Lessons from Other Transparency Experiments
• Worthy, Ben (forthcoming) ‘The Sword: how MPs and Peers have used FOI’.
• Worthy, Ben (forthcoming) ‘Institutionalising Distrust? The Impact of Transparency on Public Trust’
• Worthy, Ben and Hazell, Robert (forthcoming) ‘Does FOI work? The Impact of FOI on Central and Local Government in England’

• Worthy, B. (2010) More Open But not More Trusted? The Effect of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on the United Kingdom Central Government. Governance 23 (4), 561-582 [Online]
• Hazell, R. and Worthy, B. (2010) Assessing the Performance of Freedom of Information. Government Information Quarterly 27 (4), 352-359 [Online for a limited time]
• Worthy, Ben (2008) ‘The Future of Freedom of Information in the UK’. Political Quarterly 79 (1) 100-108

• Worthy, Ben (2007) ‘Freedom of Information in Britain: lessons from Australia’. The Alternative Law Review 32(4) 228-231
• Worthy, Ben (2007) ‘John Major’s Information Revolution? The 1994 Code of Access ten years on’. The Journal of Open Government Volume 2 (3)

Book Chapters

• Worthy, Ben and Holsen, Sarah, ‘Local Government and FOI in England 2005-2007’ in Chapman, R. and Hunt, M. (2010) Freedom of Information: local government and accountability (Ashgate: Farnham) pp 27-43

Reports

• Worthy, Ben, Hazell, Robert, Amos, Jim and Bourke, Gabrielle (2011) ‘Town Hall Transparency? The Impact of FOI on Local Government in England’. Constitution Unit: London
• Hazell, Robert and Worthy, Ben and Bourke, Gabrielle (2010) Measuring Access to Information: Report prepared for the World Bank 
• Worthy, Ben, Bourke, Gabrielle and Amos, Jim (2009) FOIA 2000 and local government in 2008: The experience of local authorities in England (Constitution Unit)
• Worthy, Ben, Holsen, Sarah and Amos, Jim (2008) FOIA 2000 and local government in 2007: The experience of local authorities in England (Constitution Unit)

Conference and seminar papers

• Worthy, Ben and Bourke, Gabrielle (2011) The Sword and the Shield: The Use of FOI by Parliamentarians and the Impact of FOI on Parliament. Constitution Unit: London
• Worthy, Ben (2011) ‘Does FOI work? The Impact of FOI on Central and Local Government in England’. Paper for the 1st International Global Transparency conference at Rutgers, May 2011
• Hazell, Robert and Worthy, Ben (2010) The Sword: How MPs and peers have used Freedom of Information? Paper for the Political Studies Association conference 2010

• Worthy, Ben and Bourke, Gabrielle (2010) Freedom of Information: what is it for and what can it do? Paper for the Using Democracy for Peace Fellowship Programme

• Worthy, Ben (2009) Freedom of information and trust in government Paper for the UCL/LSE transparency workshop.

• Worthy, Ben with Morris, Bob and Glover, Mark (2009) How is the UK Act performing comparatively and where will it go from here? Paper for the UCL Government Information seminar

• Hazell, Robert, Worthy, Ben and Glover, Mark (2009) The impact of the Freedom of Information Act Paper for the Committee on Standards in Public Life

• Hazell, Robert, Worthy, Ben and Glover, Mark (2008) The Impact of FOI: the evidence Paper for the UCL Government Information Seminar
• Worthy, Ben (2006) British Governments’ attempts to reform information control: 1974-2000 Paper for the Political Studies Association conference April 2006 University of Reading
• Worthy, Ben (2005) Callaghan and Major’s attempts to reform information control: 1976 -1995 Paper for the CANE conference University of Northampton

See Ben's full publication list via UCL's Research Publications Service

Recent non-academic impact

• Oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee (House of Commons), London (21/2/2012)

Teaching

Comparative Political Analysis (Undergraduate level 1 lecture and 2 tutorial groups Oct-Dec 2011)

• This course looks at the primary theoretical debates regarding domestic political activity within various countries including similarities and differences within different states’ domestic political systems, institutional structures and societal composition
• Other topics covered include the nature of states, political and economic development, different constitutional and electoral systems, different regime types, regime transitions and revolutions

• Spring semester 2009 & 2010: Governance of the Information Society (MA Level). The course examined some of the key theories of the information society and sought to explore how, and to what extent the ‘information revolution’ has impacted upon politics and society. In 2010 I redesigned the course to focus each week upon a different key issue such as the efficacy of China’s ‘Great Firewall’ or the impact of downloading upon the music industry. I encouraged students to take an innovative approach to presentations, add to the online reading list and create the content for my final lecture as a group.

Communication

I have presented to a range of groups from policy practitioners to academics. Below is a selection of the groups I have presented to:

• Presentation to the World Bank PREM accountability seminar (26/4/2010): The impact of FOI in the UK

• Presentation to the Political Studies Association (31/3/2010): The Sword: How MPs and peers have used FOI in the UK

• Presentation to the Herbert Simon Institute (Manchester Business School) (19/2/2010): The Impact of the Freedom of Information Act
• Presentation to the Using Democracy for Peace Fellowship Programme (with Gabrielle Bourke), (29/1/ 2010): Freedom of Information: what is it for and what can it do?
• Presentation to the Ministry of Defence (3/4/2009): The impact of the Freedom of Information Act: the requester and the media
• Presentation to the Committee on Standards in Public Life (18 /3/2009): Evaluating the impact of FOI in the UK.

Collaboration and events

• FOI Live: I organise the UK’s largest annual FOI conference for practitioners  which has attracted over 300 people. My role included designing and planning the programme, contacting speakers and marketing. This involved working with the Ministry of Justice, the Information Commissioner’s Office and a professional conference organiser.

• World Bank: I assisted in organising a conference for FOI academics and practitioners held at UCL, the first of its kind. I have also served as an external reviewer for work on FOI around the world.

• Transparency workshop: I jointly founded and organised for three years running a one day free workshop at UCL/LSE for those who study transparency around the world. This has created a small international network of academics studying in this area.