Freedom of information

The freedom of information lecture and reading helped me to understand the act and the benefits of it to journalists; proving them with information which before its use in 2006 would have been impossible to get hold of.

It givens citizens the right to access information held by companies in the public sector, about the various pieces of information which they collected and recorded. The only down side to this act is that the information has to have been recorded otherwise the company will not provide the information.

The act has been used by journalists such as Matt Davies to find information and sell it to newspapers as stories, allowing stories to be investigated and discover information about certain events such as discovering the worst hospitals in Britain based on requesting information on the number of times the hospitals have been sued, or stories where employees have been ‘too fat to work’.

Exemptions-There are several occasions when the information will not be sent to the person requesting it as a result of the following exemptions from the act:

·         The information has to have been recorded.

·          If the cost is above the £500 limit for it to be sent, based on staff work time and the cost to send the information.

·          If it is a nation security matter and therefore endangers national security

·         If it is confidential material, e.g. affecting an individual person and not a general question.

To access the information however, requests have to be made to the freedom of information officer of a public sector organisation, who will reply stating whether the information requested is able to be sent to the person requesting it; depending on the exemptions above. If the language used in the request does not match the terminology of the company then the company may reject the request or say the information requested is not held.

However if the person requesting the information believes the freedom of information officer does not comply with the act, or there is reason to believe the information is held by the company but they do not hand it over then an appeal can be made the information commissioner who can look into the rejected request.

The use of this act is extremely useful to journalists and allows information to be collected and used in news stories without investigating it further. It also ensures that truths and facts can be published without companies hiding them from the public.