Public bodies have become more open since the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act was implemented but are still reluctant to give details, new research suggests.
The study found 89% of authorities felt they were more transparent and three quarters reported they were better at storing and retrieving information.
However, researchers from Glasgow Caledonian and St Andrew's universities found a "legalistic" approach had been taken by many administrations and officials were reluctant to obey the spirit of the law.
There was also evidence the act, introduced in 2002, had been used to delay requests for sensitive information by journalists.
In turn, 25% of officials within public bodies felt some people, journalists in particular, were abusing the process by making frivolous and impractical requests.
One authority claimed it had received 100 separate requests for information in one approach from a journalist.
The report, The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002: New Modes of Information Management in Scottish Public Bodies?, was commissioned by Scottish Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion and examined how the Scottish Government, police, NHS and councils were fulfilling obligations to respond to public requests.
It found that, although the FoI legislation covers all written requests for information, a two-tier approach had evolved with applications dealt with under the terms of the act or on an informal basis.
Complex or controversial applications to authorities were more likely to be dealt with according to FoI legislation, but straightforward requests were treated as "business as usual", it was found.
Some journalists reported questions that would have previously been answered swiftly before the legislation were now dealt with under the 30-day FoI timeframe. Government officials, who remained anonymous in the report, also claimed to have come under political pressure from managers when dealing with controversial requests.
Eleanor Burt and John Taylor, the report's authors, claimed there was a culture clash within public bodies between those who saw the need for openness and bureaucratic departments who only complied with legal duties.
"Systems have been put in place, responsibilities have been formally assigned and requests are being handled pragmatically with little if any sense of democratic considerations," the researchers wrote.
The report urged better leadership in pushing through the "democratic rationality" behind the FoI legislation and ensuring officials were informed about obligations.
Kevin Dunion also came under the spotlight, with the report urging the Information Commissioner to hand out more information about developments in the law.
Disclosures under act
- Paul Hutcheon, Sunday Herald's political correspondent, scored arguably the biggest strike under FoI in 2005 when he got receipts that showed David McLetchie, the then Scottish Conservative leader, paid for taxis for private legal work using public funds. He later resigned.
- Kevin Dunion, Scotland's Information Commissioner, forced the NHS to reveal statistics that showed patient mortality rates of different surgeons.
- Campbell Martin, Independent MSP for the West of Scotland, got North Ayrshire Council to disclose correspondence related to its controversial PPP project.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article