 |
|
Ben Worthy has been the Research Associate in Freedom of Information and Data Protection at the Constitution Unit since October 2007. He was in charge of the day-to-day running of the Unit’s study of the impact of FOI upon British central government. He is now co-investigator on two projects examining the impact of FOI upon local government and Parliament. He has also organised the UK’s largest annual FOI conference for practitioners for two years running, as well as a workshop for PhD students covering transparency issues. He has written and presented on various aspects of FOI. His PhD from the University of Manchester analysed the development of FOI in Britain and was forwarded by his department for the PSA prize for best thesis.
Research Projects
Current:
Former:
- ESRC funded project into the impact of FOI upon British central government. Using interviews, surveys and media content analysis, the study is the first of its kind to investigate to what extent FOI has achieved its objectives and how it has impacted upon Whitehall and the British model of government.
- Ben's PhD thesis traced the history of the policy from the first Wilson government until New Labour. It focused upon the controversial policy process from the 1997 White Paper to the Act of 2000 and concluded with a provisional analysis of the impact of the legislation since its implementation.
Teaching
Ben is the course tutor for PUBLG061: Governance of the Information Society.
Publications
- Worthy, Ben and Holsen, Sarah. 2009. ‘Local Government and FOI in England 2005-2007’ [Forthcoming chapter in a collection, April 2009]
- Hazell, Robert and Worthy, Ben. 2009. ‘Assessing the performance of FOI in different countries’ [Forthcoming article for 2009]
- 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) www.opengovjournal.org.
Full UCL publication list
(To see a list of all the Constitution Unit's FOI publications, click here)
Other activities
- Co-organised transparency workshop at LSE on 9/7/2008 and 10/8/2009. The workshops are aimed at aimed at post-graduate students working in the area of transparency. Included students from the UK, Australia and Hungary.
- Organised ‘FOI Live 2009’, the UK’s largest FOI conference for practitioners jointly run with the Ministry of Justice and the Information Commissioner’s Office. 11/7/2009
- Organised ‘FOI Live 2008’, the UK’s largest FOI conference for practitioners jointly run with the Ministry of Justice and the Information Commissioner’s Office. 3/6/2008
Presentations
- Presentation at the Information Tribunal open day: ‘The Impact of the Freedom of Information Act’. 7/5/2009
- Presentation at the UCL Government Information seminar (with Bob Morris and Mark Glover): ‘ How is the UK Act performing comparatively, and where will it go from here?’. 22/4/2009
- Presentation to DEFRA: ‘The impact of the Freedom of Information Act: the requester and the media’. 3/4/2009.
- Presentation at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office FOI team open day: ‘FOI: the requester’. 10/12/2008.
- Presentation at the London Information Rights Forum: ‘Who is the requester?’. 27/11/2008.
This page last modified
18 November, 2009
by v.spence@ucl.ac.uk
|
|
|
