• home
• browse ↓

• « Previous Entries

Category

Uncategorized

• 04.20.13
  UK Border Agency’s highly questionable interpretation of FOI law Uncategorized | (0)

  OK, lets back up a bit here to the year 2000 and the reason the Freedom of Information Act 2000 was brought in - the Act was brought in so that the public would have a legal right to access promptly any information held by a public body except where this would be harmful. That includes the right to access information the public body or the people who work for it don't want you to have because it is embarrassing or would take up a bit of their time to put together. That said let's get back to December 2012 ...
• 04.01.13
  Information Commissioner criticised for “cut and paste” Decision Letter on Royal Household Uncategorized | (2)

  The Information Commissioner's formal ruling that the Royal Household is not legally required to answer requests for environmental information has today been criticised by a number of freedom of information experts and activists after it was found to contain unattributed extracts from three Wikipedia articles. Background Environmental information was requested from the Royal Household in March 2012. The Royal Household refused to answer the request on the basis that it was not a public authority despite receiving millions of pounds of public funding and being responsible for the upkeep of the state-owned Occupied Royal Palaces. The requester (@foimonkey on Twitter*) appealed ...
• 03.05.13
  Don’t lose your right to criticise local councils – Save the Derbyshire Principle Uncategorized | (0)

  The BBC has reported that Rutland Council could be the first local authority to sue for defamation. Lawyers claim the council's reputation had been damaged and suggested they could sue using the powers the Council now has under the Localism Act 2011. This threatens a long standing principle of English law that prevents local councils from suing for defamation. "The Derbyshire county council v Times Newspapers Ltd judgment of 1993 specifically rules out local authorities from suing for libel. As Lord Keith said in the judgment: "It is of the highest public importance that a democratically elected governmental body, or ...
• 02.28.13
  1913 Law Officers Opinion on the tax position of the Duchy of Cornwall Uncategorized | (0)

  Published here: 1913 Law Officers Opinion on the tax position of the Duchy of Cornwall
• 10.07.12
  time for a transparency manifesto Uncategorized | (1)

  Given the fact that in coalition it is hard to get agreement on big policies, especially as there isn't a lot of spare cash, I thought I would write a list of pro-transparency ideas that would be fairly small and reasonably easily to implement - though not all are uncontentious. I am an eternal optimist and I hope that lots of political parties will copy these ideas and put them in their manifestoes. Increase the number of bodies covered by the Freedom of Information Act Make all exam boards subject to FOI in respect of the administration of public examinations. Make the Higher ...
• 08.26.12
  Most coroners not registered for Data Protection Uncategorized | (0)

  A quick search of the ICO's Register of Data Controllers for the word "coroner" reveals just 18 records. This does not compare favourably with the dropdown box on the Coroner Society figure of about 110. Only 32 of these are 'whole time' coroners the remainder being paid for each case. Now let's consider whether coroners need to be registered as data controllers and other key questions that arise. (1) Do coroners hold data about living individuals? Yes. It is accepted that information about the deceased is not 'personal data' for the purposes of the Data Protection Act but as noted ...
• 06.24.12
  Close HMRC’s FOI Loophole Uncategorized | (0)

  I have set up a petition to close HMRC's FOI loophole, it is currently awaiting approval. Please sign this as soon as it is approved and promote it in any way you can. It should appear here once it is approved: Ministry of Justice Petitions ('Civ' to 'Con') Close the HMRC freedom of information loophole petition "While almost all public bodies are required to release information about companies under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 there is a loophole that means HMRC does not have to do so. The loophole is contained in Sections 18 & 23 of the Commissioners ...
• 04.17.12
  Save England’s oldest statute Uncategorized | (0)

  The oldest written law currently in force in England is the Distress Act, part of the Statute of Marlborough, 1267 (sources: [1], [2][3]) - but a Law Commission document published in April 2012 reveals that after more seven hundred years on the statute book the Act came very close to being repealed. "As indicated earlier in this Part we looked at the topics of distress and waste in the context of the Statute of Marlborough 1267 but, as explained, formed the view that it would be premature to pursue repeal of the distress chapters, pending enactment by parliament of amendments to ...
• 04.09.12
  Why charging for FOI requests will generate more red tape than cash foi, Uncategorized | (0)

  The Government's plans to charge for FOI requests are really rather disappointing as the Government has previously had a relatively good record on FOI and in 2010, Eric Pickles even spoke out against Local Councils charging journalists for making FOI requests: "If town halls want to reduce the amount they spend on responding to freedom of information requests they should consider making the information freely available in the first place." My aim in this blog post though is not to explain why charging for accountability is bad in principle but to explain the practical difficulties and additional bureaucracy that ...
• 11.13.11
  Royal Households and Data Protection Registration 0845, Uncategorized | (1)

  The Prince of Wales website lists the following Royal Households, I have cross-referenced this list of the public register of Data Controllers held by the ICO: (believe it or not there is an order of precedence for the Households, they are listed here in that order) Household of The Queen - (see register entry for Keeper of the Privy Purse) Household of The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Household of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall Household of His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales and His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales - no separate registration - some facilities are shared ...

• « Previous Entries

recent posts

• UK Border Agency’s highly questionable interpretation of FOI law
• Information Commissioner criticised for “cut and paste” Decision Letter on Royal Household
• Don’t lose your right to criticise local councils – Save the Derbyshire Principle
• 1913 Law Officers Opinion on the tax position of the Duchy of Cornwall
• time for a transparency manifesto
• Most coroners not registered for Data Protection
• Close HMRC’s FOI Loophole