Guardians of Data
A show where we explore the world of information law and governance; from privacy and AI to cybersecurity and freedom of information.
In each episode we will be speaking with experts and practitioners to unpack the big issues shaping the IG profession.
Guardians of Data
FOI and Transparency in Practice
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In the UK, Freedom of Information laws are now more than 20 years old. If you want to understand how they have impacted the way government operates, there are plenty of clues in the news headlines over the last few years; from the Covid Inquiry to the Peter Mandleson affair and the release of the Epstein files.
In this podcast we are joined by Dr Ben Worthy, a Reader in Politics and Public Policy at Birkbeck College, University of London. Ben has written extensively on issues around Transparency and Freedom of Information including authoring the book “The Politics of FOI”. Ben discusses the research studies that he has conducted into FOI practice in various sectors, to give us an insight into the practice and effectiveness of FOI in achieving transparency. We also explore what transparency actually looks like inside government and the wider public sector, what FOI can (and can’t) achieve and where transparency in the UK might be heading next.
Hit the play button to start listening to Ben's insights.
If you want more perspectives on this important topic be sure to check out our other podcast episodes. In Episode 3, Maurice Frankel , the Director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information explains the history of FOI and his views on current and future challenges to the legislation. In Episode 9 we talk to Martin Rosenbaum, an ex BBC Journalist, who also shares practical tips on dealing with FOI requests from journalists. Finally, in Episode 14 barrister, Saara Idelbi, gives practical advice on handling AI generated information requests.
Further Resources
Worthy, B. (2025). Freedom of Information at 20. Political Insight, 16( 4), 34-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/20419058251403821
Government by WhatsApp? Covid, Transparency and Government by Text: https://politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/government-by-whatsapp-covid-transparency-and-government-by-text/
Ben Worthy & Megan Waugh (2024), "More open, more democratic or better at hiding? Two decades of local government transparency in the UK", Report: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/54509/9/54509a.pdf
The Future of FOI: Martin’s view here: https://rosenbaum6.substack.com/p/registering-risk-with-andy-burnham
Transparency and FOI: https://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event/54736/secrets-and-lies-does-more-transparency-make-for-better-politics
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Hello and welcome to Guardians of Data. I'm your host, Ibrahim Hassan. Today we're talking about freedom of information and transparency and how they really work inside government, not just in theory but in practice. Before we continue, click the follow button to ensure you never miss an episode. In the UK, freedom of information laws are now more than 20 years old. If you want to understand how they have actually impacted the way government operates, you just have to read the news headlines over the last few years. The COVID inquiry gave us an extraordinary insight into how ministers and officials communicated during the pandemic, including the extensive use of WhatsApp. The Peter Vandelson Affair raised questions about the vetting of ministers and civil servants, and more broadly, about what the public is entitled to know about the people exercising public power. And internationally, the release of the Epstein files has once again demonstrated the enormous public interest in information held by powerful institutions and the political consequences when it's withheld or released. In this episode, we'll be exploring what transparency actually looks like inside both local government and central government, what the Freedom of Information Act can and can't achieve, and where transparency in the UK might be heading next. I'm joined by Dr. Ben Worthy, a reader in politics and public policy at Birkbeck College, University of London. Ben has written extensively on issues around transparency and freedom of information, including authoring the book The Politics of FOI. Ben is director of the Centre for British Political Life and sits on the UK Open Government Network. Let's jump in. Welcome to the show, Ben. Hello. Thank you so much for inviting me on here. It's lovely to have you. I'm sure it's going to be a fascinating conversation. Ben, you've been researching the impact of freedom of information in the UK for over 20 years. I'd like to start off by asking you what drew you to this field?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, my PhD long ago, back in 2003, actually looked at the Freedom of Information Act and its development in the UK. I think the really interesting puzzle that first drew me into Freedom of Information was this kind of paradox around so many countries have freedom of information laws now. I think the last estimate was around 116. And yet, freedom of information laws are very obviously something that politicians would not like. And they would probably, if you could press them in secret, rather do without them. And so I was very interested in this puzzle as how come there are so many places with freedom of information laws when they're obviously something that many politicians would probably dislike in principle. I think since then I've been very interested in how freedom of information and transparency more generally impacts on things like how politicians behave and how the public think about politics. What sort of impact does being more transparent have on, for example, the public views of what's happening and their trust in politicians? And I think looking at it from kind of 2026, you now see that freedom of information exists in this really fascinating wider landscape around open data, AI, and issues like lobbying and decision making, as well as just sort of freedom of information.
Ibrahim HasanThat's really interesting, Ben. I note that you mentioned that FOI is about changes of behavior in politicians and also it's about public trust in the way government operates. And those are themes that hopefully we can explore a bit further as we get into the podcast. Starting with the numbers, though, I know you've done a lot of work in this area. Many public authorities are reporting a big increase in FOI requests. What do the numbers say?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's really interesting because uh the UK is very much a success story in terms of use. I mean, looking far back to when the law first came into force in 2005, there were 20,000 requests to central government. And as of the last count of 2025, there are 94,526, which is a huge increase and a 14% increase on 2024. Uh, not to forget Scotland. I had a look at the statistics where there's a separate law covering Scottish matters. Uh, there was 107,304 requests over the past four quarters. So there has been a huge increase. Some FOI systems do have increasing numbers of requests, like the United States, but although stay at a kind of very low level. Um, there's a couple of things that could be driving this. I think one thing you've covered in your podcast before, and we've seen, is there's been a kind of growing awareness of freedom of information among the public? And I think also it's become increasingly a kind of accepted and used tool in how people interact with government. It's no longer a kind of novelty, but something that people turn to quite quickly. One fascinating question that I'm sure we'll revisit is whether AI is also playing a part here. Is AI prompting people to make freedom information requests when they otherwise would not have done? But there's a lot of kind of complicated drivers here that are all making for increased requests.
Ibrahim HasanI'm glad you've mentioned AI. We did a podcast with uh Barrister looking at AI-generated requests because lots of authorities are reporting those, particularly using the likes of Chat GPT and other LLMs. And there's also the likes of whatdotheKnow.com and other websites. They seem to be really increasing people's awareness and increasing usage, would you say?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, there was a really fascinating bit of research by my society who run What Do They Know, as well as some polling from the ICO that showed that one in ten people have made a freedom of information request in the UK, which is an extraordinary number and also kind of shows you that it's not just a few people using it very often, but kind of very broad numbers of people using it. AI is a tricky one. What I've done, and I want to thank any local government officers who were listening to this, is I've done two polls and surveys of local government officers across the UK in 2025 and 2026. And I asked them, how many AI-assisted requests do you think you're getting? So in 2025, the average guess was 5% of their requests were generated by AI. When I asked again in 2026, the average guess was about 11%. So around one in 10 requests have some AI assistance involved. This doesn't look like a huge increase, and it doesn't look like a kind of avalanche, but it is definitely an increase. And remember, that's an increase on already increasing numbers. So it's not just a kind of a small thing. What I don't know is to what extent these AI assisted requests are people using AI to kind of tighten up their requests, or are is this AI prompting them to make a freedom information request when they otherwise wouldn't have done it? I think the other thing that's that's quite important is as we dug into some of the comments from FOIFs, this isn't just an issue of quantity and numbers. One thing that a lot of them said was that AI requests are more complex to deal with than inverted, commas normal FOI requests. They're often much longer, they're often very complex, they contain kind of hallucinations and false information. So the time taken to kind of undo them is is much more than your average request. And I think the other thing Scottish Information Commissioner has flagged is AI requests are only part of the explanation. AI is also being used to generate more internal reviews and more complex internal reviews, and also used to lodge appeals that might otherwise not have happened. So the danger is that they're creating more work in these sort of bottlenecks that we already know about.
Ibrahim HasanI agree. A lot of the practitioners that we speak to, they say that it's not so much the number of requests that they get. As you say, the increase doesn't seem like an avalanche. It is the complexity. And it's also the fact that once they answer one request, it straight away prompts another request. It seems as though AI is encouraging them to make more requests. Whereas in fact, it could be something that could be easily resolved by picking up the phone or making a complaint or using an online form. So definitely that echoes with what we've heard. But as you say, there's perhaps more research required in FOI-generated requests. Turning to the impact of FOI Ben, we've seen an increase in requests. Does that mean, according to your research, more transparency? Have we achieved culture change?
SPEAKER_01I think the answer is definitely yes. I think if you think about things like proactive disclosure, public bodies are more inclined to publish information without being asked. I think the habits of most kind of government bureaucracies have changed towards openness. There's less inclination to keep secret, or at least a greater awareness of what the cost would be. And I think the expectations of the public have shifted about what kind of information they should have and what they're entitled to. I mean, one of the complicating facts is, of course, that freedom of information appeared almost at exactly the same time as the sort of information revolution. I think there is a but, and I'm an academic, so there always has to be a but to everything I say. It is uneven across different bodies. I I mean, I would say as a kind of very sort of broad generalization, local government finds it easier to be open than central government, and particular departments within government find it harder to be open and have kind of stronger cultures of secrecy than others. It was interesting early on that actually the Ministry of Defense made a good run in in being very open and very good in terms of its FOI requests, which kind of ran against expectations. I think the one thing that comes out of the research I've been doing is it depends very much on the leaders in different organizations and how they think about openness and also kind of senior leaders in the government. And it's also interesting to reflect maybe on some of the differences between the UK Freedom of Information Act and the Scottish Freedom of Information Act. And I think the Scottish Freedom of Information Act is particularly interesting because it's one of the few FOI laws which has deliberately and kind of consciously been expanded to different bodies through legislation over time as well. So there's interest in sort of different dynamics at play too.
Ibrahim HasanSo you're saying that generally it's achieved its purpose of openness and transparency, but it all depends on leadership. But of course, when it comes to central government, it all depends on the politicians themselves, those who are in charge of the departments, and inevitably it relies on the message from the very top, the prime minister. Now, Tony Blair said it was misused. David Cameron dismissed it as a costly distraction, furring up the arteries of government, he said. And even Lis Trust criticized it as a tool for mischief making. Has the attitude amongst politicians now changed?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think the answer isn't as simple as that. Maybe it's better to say that officials and people in the bureaucracies do accept and broadly support freedom of information, and it's the politicians who find it harder to live with. I've got to say some politicians do support being open, but most of them don't really and probably find it quite tricky and uncomfortable. And it makes sense. This is about kind of control, it's about fear and fear of embarrassment. And you know, most politicians don't mind being open as long as it's on their own terms. And unfortunately, freedom of information changes the kind of terms of openness. I think, as you say, it's it's quite remarkable that three out of the last eight prime ministers have criticized the Freedom of Information Act in public, including the person who did the most to pass the Freedom of Information Act, Tony Blair. And these kind of claims we hear from all over the place in lots of other parts of the world, too, this idea that it's undermining decision making, that it's being weaponized by the enemies, and that it's kind of creating blockages. I think there's two ways of looking at this. One way is to say actually, politicians moaning about freedom of information is a sign that it's doing their job. If they were supportive of that, I think freedom of information advocates should be quite worried. But I think it does point to some problems because when senior politicians say these things, it can kind of encourage those behaviors, even if it's sort of not true.
Ibrahim HasanWe still hear the argument from time to time, particularly from government officials, that freedom of information legislation has had a chilling effect on government. It discourages officials and politicians from discussing matters openly and frankly, and in particular from properly recording those decisions. It encourages people to move to more informal channels. Is there any evidence of this chilling effect?
SPEAKER_01I suppose in academic terms, I've got to say it's very hard to prove a chilling effect on decision making because you have to prove something that hasn't happened. And I think there's often this idea that there used to be a golden age before freedom of information where everything was written down. And I don't think that's true either. But I've got to say that there is some pretty clear evidence of records not being kept and avoidance of records in Scotland, where there was some ongoing controversy around special advisers interfering with freedom of information requests, and also attached to that, some worries that records weren't being kept around them. And over in Northern Ireland, there was a huge scandal right around the time of Brexit called the Cash for Ash scandal. And this revealed that a lot of politicians were in the habit of not keeping records, particularly one department that was involved in this very controversial policy around heating. And it emerged that essentially a group of politicians had created this parallel recording system using post-it notes and telephone calls. And these are of a great deal of concern. What's interesting is this only seems to be happening among politicians. Actually, when we spoke to officials, they said a really interesting thing. They said actually, we'd rather have a record than not have one. Because not having a record gets us into more trouble than if we do have one. But I think it was also interesting with the recent inquiry around Peter Mandelson, where it was revealed that lots of these meetings and events that should have had records didn't actually have them.
Ibrahim HasanIt's an interesting point you've made with regards to civil servants wanting to keep records to perhaps defend their positions and to ensure that they can prove that they've done the right thing. This stands at odds with the attitude of politicians, certainly during the COVID inquiry, where we learnt that a lot of them were using messaging apps such as WhatsApp to communicate with each other and opening up an informal back channel. I know you've done some research on the COVID inquiry and WhatsApp messaging. What did you learn?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is really interesting. I mean, the COVID inquiry has offered us kind of almost unique insight into how decisions are made deep within government. And myself and Martin Rosenbaum, who I know has done a podcast with you in the past, have written a paper together for the Political Quarterly about exactly this. So what we did was essentially we looked through the COVID inquiry and the reports, particularly the second set of reports, to try and look at to what extent was WhatsApp used and to what extent did this have an impact on kind of formal transparency. And as you say, obviously lots of politicians were using WhatsApp, but they continually denied that they were using it for anything of importance. They were saying we were just using WhatsApp to, you know, arrange meetings, to sort minor issues out, but we weren't making decisions on that. Now, from what we can see, this simply isn't true. Actually, a series of key decisions were being discussed via various WhatsApp groups about things like lockdown, about vaccine rollouts, and things like that. The impact of this kind of mass use of WhatsApp and other messaging systems is actually curiously double-edged. Because actually, on the one hand, WhatsApp has captured lots of conversations that otherwise would have probably been in a corridor. So there is, in some ways, a kind of trail of the discussions that otherwise, kind of 10 years ago, wouldn't have existed. I think there's some very clear evidence that politicians did attempt to delete messages and were concerned about freedom of information. A couple of politicians and officials did specifically mention the Freedom of Information Act alongside talking about deleting messages. Vaughan Gething, who was health minister in Wales at the time, famously mentioned FOI and a few others did too. I think as concerning was in the aftermath of COVID, there was a pretty suspicious lack of WhatsApp messages. There was a refusal to hand over WhatsApp messages to the inquiry. Boris Johnson accidentally lost a huge kind of tranche of his WhatsApp messages and Rishi Sunak too. So the concerns are firstly that freedom information encouraged people to kind of delete messages, but also that it encourages kind of resistance. The really interesting thing more recently was that this wasn't just a product of the COVID inquiry. I mean, Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings and people around him were particularly kind of chaotic in how they made decisions. But it emerged from the Mandelson inquiry, where Peter Mandelson's opponent's ambassador, that actually WhatsApp is still being used across the Labour government, too. And in fact, we know that at least the Prime Minister and the Chancellor both had auto-delete installed on their messages on WhatsApp. So WhatsApp and the use of informal communications is a really big issue around transparency for the future. And it's a really tricky question about what exactly you can do about it and whether you can make this instant messaging culture fit with the culture of good record keeping and freedom information, if you can even wean politicians in some way off of their use of it.
Ibrahim HasanPerhaps we shouldn't wean them off it because, as you say, we are now getting more information and they are recording more than what they would normally do, thinking that it's not disclosable, or maybe thinking that they can just press delete. But as we know, sometimes these messages end up on somebody else's system or or or in other official systems. So perhaps we should let them carry on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, the the real difficulty is how you make sure, for example, that people don't use auto-delete and how you capture them. Because as you know better than me, one of the problems is that because these messages are on somebody's phone, it requires them to cooperate with you to get the messages themselves. So we we have no idea what the lost Boris Johnson or lost Sunak messages said. I mean, one of the complaints about WhatsApp is that it only tells tiny bits of the story that get emphasized. So, yeah, the the the trick for the future is how do you capture the messages in the round rather than the messages that maybe politicians choose to let us see.
Ibrahim HasanQuite. And of course, you can never get around the problem of, as you say, politicians losing their phones, dropping them in the sea, or in one case, having their phones stolen. I think that was uh one of uh Keir Starmer's special advisers. Turning to local government, Ben, you did a study in 2024 about the impact on FOI on councils. Of course, we'll put a link to the study in the show's notes. What's your assessment of the impact of FOI on local government? How do attitudes in local government compare to central government?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's important to say there's not as much data about what's happening at local government level than at central government. There are lots of local authorities who do try and publish their statistics, but it would be wonderful to see all of the statistics in in one place. I think it's important to say local government has been more open than central government for many decades, it's again the 1970s and 80s. And also something that people often forget is that for all the kind of headlines and rasmathas of central government and FOI, it's local government that probably gets around 80% of all the requests. We estimated that for every one request that goes to central government, three or four go to local government. The first Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunyan, famously said, if you want to see the value of FOI, it's in the pages of the local newspapers. And our study, which we did back in kind of 2012, 2013, and then I revisited in 2024, was actually showing exactly this: that the real value of freedom of information was local. It was about micropolitics and about small issues that really matter to people's life, which makes sense because that's how most people engage with politics at the local level. I think local government has been more open than central government and probably finds it easier to be more open. And there's lots of other things happening as well, as you know, greater local transparency, local open data initiative, open meetings, things like this. There's a couple of causes for concern. I think first is of course the huge austerity and cuts that happened in over kind of 10 years at local government level has left local government financially in a real mess and finding it difficult to to run even basic services. But never mind freedom of information. I think the other thing for concern for freedom of information advocates is also the fact that some of the big users of freedom of information at the local level are the press. And the last decade or so we've seen a decline, a pretty huge decline in the local press. There's no longer journalists going to watch local council meetings and things like that. And that is a real concern that actually some of the people who really innovated with the scrutiny, it's just not happening. There's some great kind of hyper-local sites that have appeared, like the The Mill in Manchester and similar ones in Birmingham, but uh that's one kind of concern I'd say for democracy.
Ibrahim HasanSo you're saying that when it comes to scrutiny, it's not just about particularly local government having FOI, having these various open data initiatives. You have to have the people who can use those tools to scrutinize local government. And as you say, most of them, or a large majority of them, are the local press. And when funding's being cut, and and I see this because I know people who want to get into journalism, apprenticeships are being cut. Uh, the people using the tools, if they're not there, then it doesn't matter what kind of laws and open data initiatives you have, you're not going to achieve the purpose and achieve that scrutiny that's that's required.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. I mean, low journalists are one big user of freedom of information laws. It's not just a tool for journalists, as Tony Blair said, not at all. In fact, the biggest user group we found in our research is actually members of the public. But journalists are a really key part of freedom of information because they often innovate with freedom of information, they do things that are in the public interest, and they're also more inclined to do things like push appeals and reviews and kind of set precedents for how freedom of information should work. And they are the sort of FOI users that, you know, keep politicians on their toes, which is uh a very good thing for democracy. And so the decline of local journalism, the decline of journalism in general, can have some pretty negative effects for freedom of information, I'd say.
Ibrahim HasanAnd the importance of journalism and the importance of being able to ask questions without a feeling of favor. Well, we s we see that more and more these days, don't you? Particularly in terms of what's happening across the pond. Some journalists have been barred from the White House and have been blacklisted in terms of access to politicians. So I think definitely it it's also about how we fund journalism, how we encourage new people, young people to particularly enter that profession. We've talked about the open data initiatives, local government has been encouraged in terms of more digital transparency, live streaming, council meetings, doing more on social media, more digital consultation. Has this together helped to achieve more openness and transparency alongside FOI?
SPEAKER_01I think definitely it has. I mean, one of the initial problems when open data was being talked about is a big thing of the kind of David Cameron governments long ago, was that initially open data, especially at local level, was just seen as this initiative whereby you could just publish the data and people will pick it up and use it. You know, this idea of sort of armchair auditors and that members of the public wanted to spend their evenings looking through local council accounts. And you'll be very unsurprised to find that that simply didn't happen. But I think the encouragement of productivity, publishing information, publishing data was a positive step. And I think it does empower people, particularly when it's connected to issues of importance to them, or kind of platforms which make it accessible. WhatdotheKnow.com is just one example of many kind of very interesting transparency initiatives that can be used in all sorts of different ways. I'm thinking the example of things like postcode lookups, whenever there's an important vote in parliament, you can put your postcode in and find out how your own MP voted. There used to be a wonderful Twitter handle which told you every time a MP in the House of Parliament made a change to a Wikipedia entry, or at least a computer with a parliamentary IP address made a change to Wikipedia, which actually the data was found out via Freedom Information. And I think it's these sort of things that can make a real difference to people's lives. I mean, one often forgotten benefit of freedom of information at local level is the scores on the doors. The scores on the doors system that we all look at when we go into our favorite and least favorite restaurants is brought about by the publication of restaurant hygiene inspection reports, which were initially gotten through Freedom Information. I remember a local journalist telling me that the most popular story every year on their website was when they published the hygiene ratings for all the restaurants in the local area. So it's this connection between data issues of interest to people and the technology of making it kind of accessible that makes open data really work. There is some discussions about whether, for example, publishing open data reduces freedom information requests. And I can see how it can do it broadly. But on the other hand, when I look through some freedom of information requests, they are so niche that it's not the kind of thing that an organization would necessarily publish automatically, if that makes sense.
Ibrahim HasanYou mentioned some great examples where the public can use open data, scores on the doors, how your MP voted, how they changed their Wikipedia. Great examples where people can see what's happening using information and perhaps even ask further questions using FOI. I know personally a local community group wanted to make a database of where members of the community were buried and for people to be able to visit graves of local personalities. And the council were very forthcoming in terms of uh disclosing information, obviously not personal data, but information about the deceased. And they were able to then uh draw up this database, which is being used by members of the community. So I think it's about also educating members of the public and civil society that there is this data out there which is more than just what you can get through freedom of information. There's lots of other data that organizations proactively publish.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, some other examples that that always struck me. The one thing I haven't mentioned is EIRs. But of course, you know, the long campaign about waste in Britain's rivers and in the sea and the coast is partly a battle over EIRs and the use of EIRs to open up water companies and what they're doing, often combined, like you say, with sort of proactively published information. One of my favorite FOI requests was the one made to the Treasury, where a tax expert calculated that the British public were still paying slave owners compensation over the abolition of slavery up until 2013, which is a pretty extraordinary story on its own. So freedom of information can have this extraordinary reach when used in different ways and in different means and in different contexts. And I think one of the important things, as you say, is that when campaign is used, it freedom of information is often used just as kind of one tool amongst others to put information together and to make kind of really important political points and political campaigns.
Ibrahim HasanJust asking you to step back a little bit now, Ben. You mentioned that over a hundred countries have FOI legislation. What's your assessment as to, I'm talking about England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, how a Freedom of Information Act compares to other countries?
SPEAKER_01I think the UK Freedom of Information Act has several positive things going for it, really. Compared with other countries, there's very high levels of use, as we discussed earlier. Very high level of requests is a very healthy sign for a freedom of information regime. The fact that one in 10 people in the UK have used it is pretty extraordinary. I think the cause for concern is on the other side of the fence, as it were. The concern is as monitored, for example, by the Institute for Government is that actually the information itself isn't coming out as it used to. So if I made a freedom of information request in 2005 to central government, I think I had a 75% chance of getting the information. By 2015, it had fallen to 50%. And I think as of the last count, I had a 29% chance of getting the information. And that is a cause of quite real concern, I think. Not that requests aren't being asked and questions aren't being asked, that's really great. But on the other side, that, you know, for various reasons, bodies are not complying as they should with the freedom of information law. It's natural over time that freedom of information laws kind of stagnate and they kind of lose momentum. And I think this hasn't been helped by both the chaos in British politics and a succession of politicians who have not been particularly enthusiastic about being open in various ways and kind of deprioritizing freedom of information. So I think that's uh the worry for the future. In in international terms, the Freedom of Information Act in the UK looks good. I mean, you could compare it with the United States, where uh Donald Trump is not only trying to kind of shut down websites and shut down data, but is also filling the airwaves with misinformation, disinformation, and lies, and very obviously trying to gut the Freedom of Information Act in in various ways. And that's the kind of worst case scenario. We're not there. But I think this general kind of slowdown in cooperation and fusion, particularly from central government, not as much from local government, is probably a cause for concern.
Ibrahim HasanYes, I agree. There have been lots of concern voiced by successive information commissioners about the slowness in which some government departments tend to deal with FY requests and the backlogs, and they don't seem to be making much headway into those. So, yes, I think that that that is a cause for concern. Just asking you to look ahead now, Ben, look into your crystal ball. We have a new prime minister. Labour MPs are rejoicing because we seem to have a burn and bounce. Do we know what the new Prime Minister's plans are in terms of FOI?
SPEAKER_01I don't know specifically of any plans for freedom of information. Uh Morton Rosenberg wrote a very good Substack where he tried to also gaze into his crystal ball and make a kind of educated guess. I think there's kind of two different perspectives on this. On the one hand, Andy Burnham has been a minister and then mayor for a very long time. You would normally expect somebody to have a rather jaded view of transparency as a result. There was a tangle when he was health secretary over the release, particularly of his emails. As mayor, you could see that local journalists fought freedom of information battles over access to his diary. He was answering questions about, for example, the costs of painting the famous yellow buses up in Manchester. I think, on the other hand, to take a more kind of sympathetic or positive view, you can see how some of the things that Andy Burnham wants to do could definitely support greater transparency. He was obviously a big enthusiast and proponent of the Hillsborough law around increasing public accountability. And you can see how that would kind of link to transparency. A lot of was talk about devolution and giving greater power to local government and local mayors. That could definitely fit with greater sort of local scrutiny and openness. I did expect that, given his kind of anti-Westminster vibe, that the thing that he would push most would be perhaps lobbying reform and greater transparency around lobbying, a bit like Keir Starmer promised a couple of years ago. I suppose the first big test will be the first big secrecy scandal. How does he respond to that? You know, does he respond by being secretive? Does he respond by being transparent? And how does that work? Maybe that will give us a sign. I suppose the thing on the horizon also is about the possible expansion of freedom of information. Louise Hay, who's very close to him, has long been a supporter of extending freedom of information. I have to be slightly cynical here that almost every government since 2010 has promised to extend the Freedom of Information Act in their manifesto. But we do have the example of Scotland where actually it has been extended in 2013 and looks set to be extended again to private care homes in the very near future. And also this idea from Andy Burnham that he wants to extend the state, you know, perhaps taking parts of the water industry in England back into some sort of public control, bringing trains back under public control that was going on for a little while, all these things will actually automatically extend the Freedom of Information Act. I assume I think three in every four train journeys in the UK will be on a publicly owned train. And that means it will also be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Whether they'll go further, I don't know. So there's there's reasons to be a little slightly cynical, but reasons that, you know, some of the ideas that are being pushed actually have quite a strong link to being more transparent.
Ibrahim HasanI agree. There are some, as Ian Drury would say, reasons to be cheerful. Having said that, successive Labour manifestos have mentioned extending FOI to housing associations, to private contractors as well. And I remember Angela Rainer in her first stint as shadow housing secretary saying that she would extend to housing associations, and particularly her big thing was private contractors working for the public sector. But there's been no clue as to when that's going to happen. With regards to housing associations, recently they published a set of quasi-regulations, I think they call the STEP regulations, which require housing providers, anyone other than local authorities, to publish more information and to answer requests from tenants in relation to the housing stock. But there's no clue that they're going to actually extend the legislation. Whilst we're on the subject of politics, today's the day, I think, or in the next couple of days, the reform party will have their annual conference riding high from the polls, despite Nigel Farage's recent problems with various donations of sorts. Nigel said yesterday that the UK is a complainant society, referring in particular to his difficulties with regards to the £5 million donation. Do you think that's a hint that reform, if, and we know it's a big if, if they win the next general election, they will perhaps water down FOI to avoid scrutiny? Will it form part of another bonfire of red tape?
SPEAKER_01I think it would very definitely be the case that freedom of information would be weakened. I think it would definitely be the case that, as we've seen with reform at local government level, they would do their very best, for example, to exclude journalists from forums of scrutiny and ways of asking questions, whether that's press conferences, whether that's meetings, whether that's kind of access to documents. I mean, we've seen that already happening. I think the other thing is that so most traditionally for most political parties and organizations, when they're out of power, they're very enthusiastic about freedom of information. When they're in power, it's a different conversation. That's not the same for everybody. I'll single out Gordon Brown as somebody who, as Prime Minister, praised the Freedom of Information Act. I think it's a particular case, though, that kind of pattern for populists. And we've seen some great studies of populist governments around the world who like to use the Freedom of Information Act when they're out of power. They like to champion the Freedom Information Act. And as soon as they get in, they do all that they can to kind of avoid the Freedom Information Act and clamp down, as I say, more generally, on the other mechanisms of kind of accessing information within organizations. So I think we'd see a pretty kind of strong reaction against scrutiny. The only good thing is that actions like this are sometimes subject to what you this phenomenon you might know called the Streisand effect. This is based on the idea that Barbara Streisand once informed journalists that they were not allowed to fly over and take pictures of her house. And this, of course, then challenged journalists to try and take pictures of the house because they wondered what it was that she was hiding and didn't want people to see. And so the other idea is that when governments do try and clamp down too obviously on access to information and kind of scrutiny, they just encourage more scrutiny rather than sort of make it go away. I think that's an optimistic way of thinking about it. And I think what's been happening in the US with Donald Trump is a big area of concern. But I would say that, you know, even in the US, with the populism there and the anti-democratic authoritarianism of Donald Trump, you do see freedom of information being used in really interesting ways. So, particularly around things like deportations and the illegal use of state power to remove people, freedom of information has played a really important role locally and regionally in sort of opening up the detention camps and opening up things like the deportation flights as well. So it does play a very important role.
Ibrahim HasanAnd I suppose if reform do get into power and they pass some of the more controversial policies, we probably will end up with more FOI requests to central government, but also to local government where they are in power at the moment. And I was reading that, as you mentioned, the clue as to how they're going to behave is in the fact that they're controlling a number of councils. So in Nottinghamshire, I believe for a time they banned one of the local papers. And the allegation was just because they didn't like the kind of questions and the focus of some of the anti-reform stories. So it is something that will be interesting. But as I say, it's a big if if they get into power.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely.
Ibrahim HasanBen, it's been a fascinating conversation. I know you've got various blogs and you've mentioned a number of the studies and Martin's article, all of which we're going to put into the show's notes. Is there any other projects that you're working on, research that you're doing that our listeners would find interesting or can get involved even?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'd urge anybody to get in touch if there's anything that you think of interest and anything do. I'm working on AI and freedom of information. I'm looking a little bit into some studies around actually EIRs and water companies, trying to do some analysis of how EIRs have been used and how it connects to the kind of wider campaigns that we've been seeing happening as well. I'm also putting together some work for a possible project on freedom of information and transparency in Northern Ireland as well. So if anybody has any kind of interesting thoughts, or indeed if there's anything I can help them with, I have lots of research that might be able to be of use to you too. So please do drop me an email. Email is b.worthy at bbk.esac.uk. So please uh drop me a shout. And thanks so much for having me on the podcast. It's been really interesting.
Ibrahim HasanWonderful. And once those studies are completed, we'll be sure to invite you back to talk about them. And of course, if you want to share all those links and resources, then we'll be happy to put them into the show's notes. Ben, thank you very much. It's been a fascinating conversation, and I look forward to another conversation in the future.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. And thank you to all your listeners and anybody who's helped me in the past, too.
Ibrahim HasanThat's all for this episode of Guardians of Data. More than 20 years after the Freedom of Information Act came into force, it's clear that it's being used more than ever. But as our conversation shows, the really interesting question is not simply how many requests are being made. It's what happens when those requests meet the realities of government. We've heard about the changing attitudes of politicians and officials and the continuing tension between transparency and the desire to control information. Ben also made some interesting observations about FOI and transparency in local government and how it's being impacted by the decline of local journalism. He reminded us that transparency isn't simply about releasing information. It's about creating the conditions in which information can actually be used to challenge power and improve accountability. If you want more perspectives on this important topic, be sure to check out our other podcast episodes. In episode three, Maurice Frankel, the director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, explains the history of FOI and his views on current and future challenges to the legislation. In episode nine, I talked to Martin Rosenbaum, an ex-BBC journalist who shares practical tips on dealing with FOI requests from journalists. Finally, in episode 14, Barrister Sarah Idelby gives practical advice on handling AI-generated information requests. If you enjoyed this episode of Guardians of Data, please share it with colleagues and others who work in information governance. It's a great way to help grow the IG community and support professional learning. Don't forget to check out the show's notes for more resources and links to all the studies mentioned by Ben in this podcast. Thanks for listening and join us next time on Guardians of Data.
