Freedom of Information (Designation as Public Authorities) Order 2011

The order before us is welcome, in general terms. As the extension of the operation of the Freedom of Information Act to the three bodies concerned was first raised as long ago as 2007, there has been plenty of time for grave, or even limited, concerns to be raised about the matter. There are, consequently, only some quite small matters that spring to my mind as being worthy of inquiry. These arise not so much from the propositions themselves as from the impact assessment, which was published in June of this year, and the very helpful Explanatory Memorandum. This memorandum describes ACPO as being a professional body, not a staff association. I find that concept a little hard to come to terms with because there seem to be occasions when ACPO does, to some extent, consider matters that are peculiar to the police and may not have a direct public impact. I am thinking, for example, of whether it would be desirable for their reactions to a proposed restructuring of the police to be identified as the views of individuals participating in a debate on the subject. It is clear that the views of ACPO as a whole on such a restructuring should be engaged, but it cannot be entirely desirable for the way that debate took place to be made public. I know that individual members of ACPO are already subject to inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act, so perhaps I am splitting hairs. However, there must be matters that it is appropriate for professional associations not to disclose because they apply to them and not necessarily to the public. The more important issue arises from the indication that the Government are continuing the process of scrutiny of the consequences of the Freedom of Information Act, although this may be just a failure of understanding on my part. The Explanatory Memorandum that we have been given indicates that that is an ongoing process, but that the results might be known by the end of this month. That is referred to in paragraph 12, ““Monitoring & review””. It states that any changes to be made to the FOI Act as a whole will be contained in a memorandum to be submitted to Justice Committee later this calendar year. How extensive and deep will the inquiry be? Are all the departments and all the many bodies covered being asked to make a submission? That must create a very considerable body of work. That should be viewed in conjunction with what was stated in the impact assessment of the policy review; namely, that there will be no arrangements in place that will allow a systematic collection of monitoring information for future policy review. To invite all the bodies covered by FOI to make submissions once as a kind of big research exercise is perfectly sensible and reasonable, and was envisaged when the Act was brought forward. However, if we are to maintain proper parliamentary oversight of the effectiveness of this scrutiny, this openness and the purposes of the Act, it would make sense if problems that arose in the administration of the Act were noted and tabulated so that it was relatively easy for the bodies, where there is a conflict, to produce that information without going into the difficult process of historical digging, which would take far longer and require more public funding. I rather question the wisdom of not having a systematic collection of monitoring information for future policy reviews if that is the case. Apart from that relatively minor matter, I endorse the intentions of the Government and am glad that these provisions have been brought forward.