All freedom of information requests could soon be published on Brighton and Hove City Council’s website again after a Government review recommended all large authorities do so.
A Government review of the FOI act had raised the prospect that people would be charged – a £10 fee was mooted by some – for making requests for information.
But after an outcry from media, transparency campaigners and members of the public, the plans were dropped. Instead, one of the review’s recommendations was for new legislation compelling authorities who employ more than 100 people to publish all requests and responses.
A council spokesman said it was already looking at ways of doing this. He said: “We are committed to restarting publishing FOIs on the web again in the future, although the contract with My Society was not renewed. Contracts are regularly reviewed and in this case, a decision was taken not to renew the contract.
“The council is committed to the principles of the Act and we have agreed to make arrangements to publish FOI responses on our own website, which we are currently exploring.
“Currently we have a temporary measure where we publish a monthly update while we develop an in house solution to publishing FoI responses on our own website. It shows the kinds of request we are receiving. If anyone wishes to see the full responses we can supply copies with the personal data removed (name, email, address etc. of requester).”
The council previously published all requests on a standalone website, powered by the MySociety website WhatDoTheyKnow – as well as WhatDoTheyKnow itself.
The contract was ended in autumn last year – shortly after the link between the two sites was paused after a MySociety volunteer moderator flagged up a number of data breaches made by the council, such as regularly publishing requester’s details without their knowledge or consent.
