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Freedom of information requests 'restricted' - 2006/10/31 03:52
The UK Guardian's David Leigh and Rob Evans say the UK government's plan to restrict Freedom of Information requests from the media is not an efficiency drive but brazen censorship...
Monday October 30, 2006
The Guardian
Barely has the freedom of information act come into force, than ministers have decided they want to stop journalists benefiting from it. Reporters, they claim, are overloading the system simply by making use of it.
A firm of consultants employed by Lord Falconer, the constitutional affairs secretary, has pronounced that FOI is costing Whitehall £24m a year, requires 400 civil servants to administer it, and takes up ministers' valuable time with too many "very high cost cases" brought by "serial requesters" - aka journalists. These figures have been used to back up a drastic plan to cap the number of requests from media organisations.
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