FOI could be cheaper than predicted
It's well worth reading about the Frontier Economics report.
He says that the current cost of FOI in practice according to Frontier Economics in fact appears to be much less than what the government was projecting when it was introducing the legislation in 1999. The 91Èȱ¬ Office research which contained these higher projections has, according to Steve, been removed from the DCA website, so it is difficult for me to comment in detail on this comparison, but at face value it is still very striking.
Steve also makes the point that the report was clearly put together in a big hurry, which may well explain some of the question marks over it.
I should also mention that the DCA has to give the Campaign for Freedom of Information the raw data on which the Frontier Economics report was based - a refusal which the Campaign has .
I have also asked the DCA for a subset of the raw data, in the hope that this might shed some more light on some of the report's more mysterious features.
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After reading elsewhere on the 91Èȱ¬ website about the problems of communication due to the use of jargon, I was startled to read this item about "FOI" and "DCA".
The article also refers to "91Èȱ¬"! Tut, tut...
FYI : A quick google for Annex A of the 91Èȱ¬ Office (1999) Freedom of Information report turns it up , safely archived away by the government for our viewing pleasure. I look forward to your detailed comments ;)
Many thanks indeed for pointing that out, and apologies for missing it.
I've now looked at the 91Èȱ¬ Office cost predictions from 1999. They examined a number of scenarios based on various low-cost and high-cost assumptions, leading to a range of predictions for the annual cost of FOI from a minimum of £9 million (with £12 million for the first year) to a maximum of £118 million (with £124 million in the first year).
Points I would make about this are:
* The actual charging regime adopted does not correspond to any of the 91Èȱ¬ Office assumptions, so one can't assess the accuracy of the predictions themselves.
* The 91Èȱ¬ Office figures are for similar categories of potential expenditure to the ones that the Frontier Economics report deals with, although the 91Èȱ¬ Office did also take into account the cost of publication schemes and training.
* The 91Èȱ¬ Office also took into account savings because of other information work that FOI would replace. Frontier Economics do comment that such savings exist, but they make no attempt to quantify them and reflect them in their analysis.
* The substantial similarity between the expenditure heads means that a fair comparison can be made. It is therefore clear that the Frontier Economics figure (£35 million) for the annual cost of FOI is well within the range that the 91Èȱ¬ Office was contemplating at the time, and in fact is very much at the lower end of the range (even more so when one also takes inflation into account, about 20% since 1999).
* At that time (1999) the 91Èȱ¬ Office said of the highest projected cost of £125 million, that 'it seems reasonable to assume that in general the cost of implementation of the legislation can be absorbed within existing provisions.'
184 people commenting on Newsnight's Madonna, a handful here. How on earth do you find the courage to go on, Martin?
Maybe I need to put in some FOI requests about Madonna ... watch this space.