“PHASED” proposals to extend the Island’s Freedom of Information legislation to arm’s-length organisations are being developed, the Chief Minister has said following repeated calls by the JEP to enact a decade-old States decision.
Deputy Lyndon Farnham told politicians this week that, while the extension was “yet to be decided”, it was “a work in progress”.
As has been highlighted as part of a campaign by this newspaper, it has been over ten years since the States committed to including ALOs in the law’s remit following a proposition by Deputy Carolyn Labey in 2014.
During a sitting of the States Assembly, Deputy Jonathan Renouf asked for details of any plans to amend the Island’s FoI legislation.
Deputy Farnham responded: “There are currently no firm plans to amend the law, but the government would like to review the law to ensure it is still fit for purpose and ministers have therefore asked officials to consider some options and recommendations.”
He continued: “It’s now more than ten years since the law was introduced, and as in other jurisdictions, there is an opportunity to review, look at the lessons learned, and potentially make improvements to the law.
He noted that ministers were “conscious” that FoI requests now cost in excess of a million pounds a year – and that the volume of requests had “increased considerably, now exceeding 1,000 requests a year”.
However, he added that “one of the things we would like to do is make information more readily available to the public”.
Deputy Inna Gardiner asked Deputy Farnham whether there was any progress addressing “long-outstanding action from the government to extend Freedom of Information to arms-length organisations”.
Deputy Farnham said that would form part of the review, adding: “We are currently developing proposals, as requested, to extend the law to ALOs in a phased manner, alongside strengthened commercial exemptions. As part of this, officials may also come back to the Council of Ministers with other suggestions for improving the law – all that is yet to be decided, but it is a work in progress.”
He explained that a phased extension would “allow the organisations that it impacts upon to deal with it appropriately”.
