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| The Freedom of Information Act and records management project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for 14 months (2008-2009). |
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The UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force in January 2005.
The Act imposes significant duties and responsibilities on public
authorities to give access to information. To achieve this, public
authorities need to know what information they hold, manage and retrieve
information effectively, deal expeditiously (within 20 days) with FOI
requests, and disseminate information through a publication scheme. As
was made clear in the Lord Chancellor's Code of Practice on the
management of records published in compliance with FOIA (s 46),
effective records management enables authorities to meet these
obligations and underpins FOI. Together with Data Protection Act 1998
and Modernising Government agenda, FOI is a significant part of the
wider government agenda to increase openness, transparency, trust and
accountability in the public sector. The impact of information policy
and freedom of information on public services and the effectiveness of
public authorities in meeting their obligations are significant factors
in the accountability of government to its citizens and of concern to
all.
The central research question is: what has the impact of the UK Freedom
of Information (FOI) Act 2000 been on records management services in
public authorities? More specifically, the project will examine:
(a) how well records management services prepared for and coped with the first three years of FOI implementation
(b)what contribution records management services make to the ability of public authorities to comply with the FOI Act
(c) how the user experience of FOI is affected by the management of records
(d) what the implications are of FOI so far for good practice in records management.
The research will seek to discover the impact of FOI and its link with records management from three perspectives:
1. records managers
2. institutional FOI policy managers
3. FOI requesters and user communities
We aim to demonstrate how each group contributes to and benefits from
the inter-relationship between records management and FOI. It will also
identify examples of good practice which can be shared within the
records management and public sector communities and will disseminate
theoretical and policy findings to the professional, academic and public
policy communities through publication.
Details of the project dissemination activities can be found here.
Details of project publications can be found here
The project is directed by a Management Board.
For further details please contact Dr Elizabeth Shepherd (Principal Investigator), e.shepherd@ucl.ac.uk
