freedom of information PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


declined, official statistics show. A recent report from openDemocracy highlights that in 2020 just 41 per cent of requests to government departments and agencies were answered in full, described at the time as “the lowest figure since recording began”. By 2023, this had dropped to 34 per cent.


In 2019, 93% of requests were responded to within the legal time limit of 20 days (which includes cases where the body gives itself a 20-day extension to consider the request in more detail) but, by 2023, this had fallen to just 81%. “Delays have become really baked in,” says freelance home affairs and security journalist Lizzie Dearden. “I no longer expect anything to come back in 20 days. I can’t even remember the last time something came back within the deadline.” Nevertheless, she remains a fan of the process. “Some


people think it’s about stats, but you can ask for documents too, and they can reveal extraordinary things.” While home affairs editor for The Independent, she worked alongside Liberty Investigates to obtain details from the Home Office of force used against asylum seekers who were put on the first attempted deportation flight to Rwanda in 2022.


“Requesting details about staff use of force yielded this


horrific disclosure on how desperate people were – cutting their wrists and trying to kill themselves – things that we never would have known otherwise,” she says. In 2020, openDemocracy’s Corderoy exposed the existence of the Cabinet Office’s Clearing House – an ‘Orwellian’ unit that vetted FOI requests, particularly those from journalists. It routinely blocked the release of information, and its interference added delays to the process of requests being answered. Corderoy forced more information about the


secretive unit into the public domain after taking the issue to a tribunal. A government review of the Clearing House in 2022 recommended it be transformed into a centre of excellence giving advice on complying with the law, rather than deciding whether departments should approve requests.


In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry that preceded


the review, Corderoy wrote: “The right to information is essential to a properly functioning democracy. However, the current system is not working, particularly within central government departments, and above all, the Cabinet Office.” She tells The Journalist that not much has changed since.


“We are still coming across central government departments not sticking to the legal deadlines and pushing them back. That can take out the sting of the newsworthiness of what you’re pursuing.” The Times’s Greenwood revealed in October 2024 that


Tony Blair described h imself as a ‘nincompoop’ after his government brought in the Freedom of Infomration Act


Suella Braverman had forwarded government documents to her private email accounts at least 127 times in her role as attorney general from 2021-2022. The potential breach of the ministerial code was released some 18 months after it was first requested via an FOI, after a tribunal judge ordered the Attorney General’s Office to release it. When he submitted his request, Braverman was home secretary; by the time he received the information she was an opposition MP. Greenwood calls for the Information Commissioner to be


given more powers to ensure government departments comply with their responsibilities. So, what does the future look like for FOI? In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party published a policy paper saying they would extend the FOI Act to private businesses working on public contracts and publicly funded employers’ associations. But the measures did not appear in Labour’s election manifesto. Does Frankel see them being in favour of transparency or, like so many other governments, of changing their view and looking to introduce new limits? “It’s too early to say,” he says. “They haven’t shown


any sign of wishing to restrict the act, and I hope that will remain their position, but we would really like to see it strengthened both by extending it to contractors and by taking measures to restrict the opportunities for delay by public authorities.” Time will tell which direction they choose.


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