From uncovering abuses of power to helping us identify the government’s pandemic preparations, freedom of information (FOI) requests are a vital tool by which citizens can hold public authorities to account. But as today’s report by the public administration and constitutional affairs committee says, the government has let standards slip, and concerns about the transparency of the system continue to mount. When the government lost a court battle last April, my committee grew concerned about the “clearing house”, an obscure unit in the Cabinet Office that co-ordinates responses to FOI requests across government. Our report paints a disheartening picture of rising waiting times, poor practices, declining trust in the government’s responses and a soaring number of complaints to the regulator. Some of the more extreme

Source: The Times April 29, 2022 07:09 UTC